Parking lot wayfinding by means of giant, stereoscopic anamorphic words that only line up when you're correctly positioned
Axel Peemoeller's award-winning parking lot design has giant words that snap into focus when you stand (or drive) in the right position, providing strong orientation cues: "In Melbourne I developed a way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Carpark. The distorted letters on the wall can be read perfectly when standing at the right position. This project won several international design awards." Eureka Carpark Melbourne (Thanks, Bill!)
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Wouldn't this create the illusion that there's something floating there, right in your way? I mean, your logical brain would know better, but I'm concerned that your back brain might start sending out false 'caution' warnings.
Correction - that's "anamorphic," not "stereoscopic"
anamorphosis - a drawing presenting a distorted image that appears in natural form under certain conditions, as when viewed at a raking angle or reflected from a curved mirror (dictionary.com)
Good Wikipedia article; the technique goes back to the 15th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphosis
Yeah, so that's all well and good if you're already going the right way. If you're in the wrong place, that's got to make things even more confusing. Seems like a whole lotta fail to me.
I've seen a few of these anamorphic things lately. How are they done? Projector?
Stratos, a projector would be my guess as well.
This is cool, but they will soon have tire marks on parts of the letters.
So, you just wander around aimlessly until words magically appear?
Because an arrow would be too difficult, I guess.
@3: That was my thought too, at first, but I think I see the trick. The sign will attract your attention when you're doing what you do when you're lost in a parking garage: running up and down the laneways in your car.
When you're in the wrong spot, the sign is just a jumble of lines, so it's not going to trigger a response in a driver's brain. When he drives past the right spot, though, there'll be a flash of information -- UP -- that will draw attention to itself.
The only thing that concerns me is that text is actually one of the poorer things at attracting human attention. It's why we keep PUSHing into doors that need to be PULLed even though there's a PULL sign right next to it. Other cues are overpowering the text, so we don't process it and pull off a School for the Gifted.
@6: Don't see anywhere where it says this is exclusive and not supplementary.
I agree with #1. If I turned a corner and saw a giant UP floating in front of me I'd slam on the brakes.
I think it would be way more disorienting driving your car into floating, brightly-colored words than it would be to follow the standard signage that's been around for ages.
But it's when you're NOT where you're supposed to be that you need those kinds of signs, yes? I've seen some other really impressive examples of this kind of thing out there, but they all tend to give me more of a sense of vertigo than I usually like when driving a car (but my brain is wired like that).
waterfall or mist projections?
I think the "UP" and "DOWN" ones make sense, but I'm not sure I see what the "KILL" and "BURN" ones are supposed to accomplish.
federal prisoners on "voluntary work detail" chained to the walls at strategic points and painted dayglo orange.
I love this idea just for the artsy side of it. I'd love to see this in my mall and I hope it's not going to be made out to be some sort of a safety or security issue.
Yes, it doesn't make sense until you've already gotten to the right place to make sense of it. There are no cues to guide you into position.
It's a cool idea. I just don't think it's necessarily ideal for this application.
lines of LED lights in the ceiling, each car logged and tracked by the security CCTV. Software to note when a parked car starts to move again (must be leaving), then the CCTV coordinates car position in parkade so LEDs in ceiling form pulsing chase line leading the way out.
Either that or federal prisoners chained to overhead track that leads each car out by walking in front of it.
I don't think this technique will have too much use for traffic control, but it might be very successful in advertising.
You've got a lot of free time it seems Takuan. I nominate you for the chained lead job.
nah,I'm more the artistic type
I'm assuming the goal here isn't "Find the up ramp" but "Align yourself so you navigate the spiral on the up ramp safely".
Theoretically someone trying to get up the ramp might do a bit of wavering on their angle - this way if they cross the correct angle of approach they may stop wavering and seek back to the correct angle, instead of possibly getting stuck in the spiral or ending up in oncomming traffic (we have spiral ramps like this at a local hospital with two way traffic. I live in fear every time I go up it because down traffic is inevitably in my lane).
Re: slamming on the brakes.
If hitting the brakes in a parking garage is causing you problems - then you're going too fast for a parking garage in the first place.
@16
I like the LED lights on the ceiling idea. Especially if they're tracking lights that appear to move in the direction and recommended speed you should be driving.
If you haven't already, you should check out Swiss artist Felice Varini's work here.
He's been doing this kind of thing for a long time.
I think the idea is that the COLOR of the shapes lead you to the general way you have to go, and the actual appearance of the text order you what to do exactly where you have to. In theory, you could be across the parking complex and see the blue wall, knowing that general area is where the access to the upper floor is.
The farther you are from a sign, the bigger and clearer you need the sign. This would work on that rule well...
..As long as you knew blue meant 'UP', etc.
look *really* close: it's not projection.
it's paint!
What exactly determines the "right" position? What does that even mean in this context? If I want to go up and I can see the place to go up then aren't I in the "right" position even if I can't read that sign?
In Dallas, we have a series of overpasses and supporting beams on one street downtown that creates the same affect. Our design is very similar; the shape is makes (only while driving, by the way) is a thick blue circle outline shape.
#25,
I think the matter of using projection was an answer to how these are created. I imagine one projects the necessary image from the desired viewing location, then walks over and paints down where the light is shining.
And I agree, this would freak me out whilst driving. In a car park though, you should only be driving 10 miles an hour or thereabouts anyway so hardly a major concern.
#25,
I think the matter of using projection was an answer to how these are created. I imagine one projects the necessary image from the desired viewing location, then walks over and paints down where the light is shining.
And I agree, this would freak me out whilst driving. In a car park though, you should only be driving 10 miles an hour or thereabouts anyway so hardly a major concern.
#23 - I was actually looking at some of these images last night - very coincidental!
My favourite: http://www.varini.org/dospho/dos3/var165a01.jpg
From a different angle: http://www.varini.org/doshpdv/imghpdv06/165a01h.jpg
The neat thing here is that the correct viewing position is in fact askew of what you would expect to be the correct viewing position - directly in front - which is shown in the second picture to break the illusion completely.
I think it would have been even more awesome however, if the lines were dotted and had a little scissor silhouette on them.
Is it still legible if one is taller or shorter than the "right" height (such as for a person sitting in a wee roadster or in an towering Hummer)? If not, then fail.
I'd write "Game Over"
We were recently inspired by this, and did some of our own at the Armchair office.
Photos of the process and results here:
http://flickr.com/photos/byrdhouse/sets/72157606031971589/
idea totally ripped from Felice Varini -
www.varini.org/
A link to the front page of a website, in French, is not really all that helpful. Did you maybe have a more specific link that you'd like to share?