Highway Gallery, Louvre Abu Dhabi

“If traffic won’t come to the Art, why not bring Art to the traffic?”

Located in the United Arab Emirates, the Louvre Abu Dhabi is an art and civilization museum. With 260,000 square feet of museum campus and 86,000 square feet of galleries, it made itself the largest art museum in the Arabian Peninsula.

“On the occasion of the UAE Innovation Month, on the E/11 Sheikh Zayed Road that connects Dubai to Abu Dhabi, ten huge billboards of 9x6 meters were placed, representing giant reproductions of the most famous pieces in the museum's collection.” —Kooness

It is typical to use street signage to keep visitors informed. However, Louvre took this strategy to the next level: the museum used billboards to narrate the path toward the newly launched museum. They also found the “Highway Gallery” program to keep visitors “in tune.”

In partnership with the Abu Dhabi Media Company, Radio 1 FM, Classic FM, and Emarat FM, TBWA/RAAD created this program to complement ten significant art prints on EE/11 Sheikh Zayed highway. This innovative move enhanced the boring highway-driving experience. It also made drivers subconsciously lowering driving speed.

How long is the [Highway Gallery] program?

Eighty-five percent of Abu Dhabi’s visitors come from Dubai each year. It is about 146km (91 miles) from Dubai International Airport to Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Louvre Abu Dhabi is known for its geometric-patterned dome: a 180 meters diameter, earthquake-resistant roof structure. I have not visited the place myself. However, we could imagine from this map that traveling this 36-mile-long route from exit 376/Kizad to the Louvre museum must be pretty dull. Therefore, the museum curated audio stories at each art billboard for visitors to have a continuous visual and audio stimulation of arts on this 36 miles drive. While visitors approach each billboard, they can tune their radio to a three to four minutes-long of the artwork's history.

Contrary to the museum's grand gesture that tries to capture all collections underneath one roof, this innovative audio program has expanded the arts and culture beyond the museum walls.

Aqua Tower, Chicago

Podium tower structure and its site approach

The Aqua tower has a two-story low-rise retail podium at the street level. Its roof garden at the podium pushes this building further towards the north. This gesture maximizes the southern sun exposure for the roof garden, enhances the foreground for visitors from the south, and leaves an opening for pedestrians to see Lakeshore East Park, another urban-type neighborhood garden.

A Natural-born wayfinding Building

Many people are impressed by Aqua tower's undulated exterior- its provocative aethetic draws the public’s attention. Moreover, it is an architectural result of a multifaceted approach to its surrounding environment. For engineering, the rippled sculptural condition is to break the wind pressure. For the tower's residents, the various-shaped balcony extends the view and maximizes solar shading (for the interior); and for the outdoor lovers, its consise messing minimize its shadows on the roof garden and park ground.

However, none of them has discussed one added advantage: the tower's wayfinding characters.

You may wonder why I give this tower such a label. This tower is not visible from the Monroe Harbor, not noticeable from the Chicago River. It is neither the tallest tower within the Chicago Loop.

View Aqua Tower from a boat at Chicago River

Approach Aqua Tower from Aon Center- able to see complete building profile.

View Aqua Tower from corner of Aon Center (N Columbus Drive and E Randolph Street intersection)- curvature texture of building skin becomes more noticeable.

Park access, roof garden and low-rise retail podium set a foreground for Agua Tower. The roof garden at south made pedestrians easier to capture building’s entire profile. Lake Shore East Park is at a lower level. Visitors would able to see the park feature from the street level.

Tower's unique location leads to Lakeshore East park

If we draw a line along Michigan Ave at Chicago Loop, St. Regis Chicago is the tallest, and Aon Center is the second tallest. The Aqua Tower only becomes visible when visitors arrive at the North Columbus Drive and East Randolph intersection. The front plaza of Aon center opens up a gap and sets an ideal stage for the Aqua tower.

Imagine visitors who finished sightseeing at Millennium Park and planned to return to their hotel next to the river. The primary route they would take was to walk towards Aon Center. Once they arrive at Aon Center, it is inevitable to spot this curved building. Through the pathway in front of the building, visitors could discover Lakeshore East Park.

Lakeshore East Park, completed in 2005, is 4.6 acres of master-planned mixed-use urban park. Appeared to be the core of Lakeshore East's donut-configuration development; the park is the City's first and currently only free wireless park. It is also a dog-friendly park, allowing un-leashed dogs to walk in the park freely.

A combination of visibility and walkability in the neighborhoods

Aqua tower's distinctive exterior marks Lakeshore East's modern development. Not only its wayfinding character but the ample sidewalks around this development and retail cluster make "on-foot" an appealing means to travel.

You might also find it coincidently meets the following LEED-ND criteria for walkable streets, such as:

90% of new buildings have functional entries onto the circulation networks or public space.
More than 15% of the block length of the circulation network has a minimum building-height-to-street centerline ratio of one to one and a half.
Continuous sidewalks are provided along 90% of circulation networks. These sidewalks are more than eight feet wide on mixed-use blocks.
Less than 20% of its circulations around the blocks face directly to service bay openings.

What's the takeaway?

It is essential to know how the visitor would approach their final destination when designing wayfinding features. With visitors' speed in mind, perhaps we can make more creative solutions for our cities than ever.

Notes and References: