Thomas Matthews – Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Identity and Wayfinding

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Identity and Wayfinding

Birmingham City University

The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire opened the doors of its £57million new home in 2017, a state-of-the-art facility that combines teaching and performance in the digital age – the perfect fusion of traditional and contemporary. The building identity and wayfinding is inspired by the physicality of playing, performing and listening to music.

What we did

Brand Strategy & Identity Wayfinding & Environmental

Design with respect for tradition and ambition for the future

Thomas.Matthews joined the design team to create a bespoke building identity, signage and wayfinding. The identity sits in line with, and acts as a beacon for, the University brand whilst creating a sense of place that reflects the unique activity of the Conservatoire. The building needs to feel modern and exciting – a conservatoire of the future – whilst maintaining its appeal to existing supporters, students and audiences and being respectful of the long musical tradition, established in 1886.

Inspiration through activity
Conservatoires provide a unique educational experience that is based on learning through the practice and performance of music. Understanding the experience of playing, performing and listening to music as a physical event inspired our creative idea: The Dynamic of Music. We set out to articulate the feeling of music through pattern, physical form and material. The new building is a contemporary response to the practical needs of a modern conservatoire and the identity and signage solution acts as a visual link to the long tradition of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

The art of translation
To create this traditional visual link, we worked with marbling designer Jemma Lewis to develop bespoke patterns that physically respond to pieces of music relevant to the teaching and learning at the conservatoire. The traditional practice of marbling with inks and water has been used for many centuries but gained popularity in Britain in the late 1800s. Using this traditional process, we created unique patterns to represent each floor in the building. Patterns are used at large scale to define venue entrances; as a restrained colour edge in busy and active spaces and as a full colour experience in more utilitarian circulation spaces such as stairways.

The Conservatoire also required a detailed wayfinding and signage strategy, a building wide colour palette, orientation maps, a family of signage and large-scale environmental graphics. Our initial creative work began in 2013 and was completed by the end of 2017.

TheRoyal Birmingham Conservatoire was awarded RIBA West Midlands Award 2018 and RIBA West Midlands Building of the Year 2018

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