PROJECT HIGHLIGHT:
854 Ellicott Street Parking Garage
Ramping up
stress-free parking
Takeform helps new downtown Buffalo garage guide people to multiple health facilities
A growing cluster of Buffalo, N.Y., hospitals is bringing more employees and more visitors to the neighborhood—along with more traffic. To make more room and centralize parking, the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus recently built the 854 Ellicott Street Parking Garage, a nine-level, $40 million project that boosted capacity from 800 to 1,800 spaces. The garage serves multiple distinct healthcare facilities that surround it, including the recently built John R. Oishei Children's Hospital, as well as Buffalo General Medical Center, Gates Vascular Institute, and University at Buffalo Medical Campus.
The Transit product line from Takeform, developed specifically for parking garage challenges, took center stage.
With so many different destinations linked to one parking facility, there was a need for clarity within the winding ramps of the space. For instance, signage needed to point patients to two separate ERs, one for adults and one for children. Employees had designated levels not for public use. And there was one connection in which a fourth-level exit led visitors through a skybridge to a second-floor hospital entrance, which could also lead to confusion (“What floor was I on again?").
Takeform worked with the client to develop innovative parking garage signage to help everyone find their way easily and get to the right destination quickly.
To prevent confusion, level four is deliberately color-coded to match the palette on the 2nd floor of the Oishei Children's Hospital it connects to.
Amplify window film identifies elevator bays. Similar applications also clearly direct the public to one of two distinct ERs served by the parking facility.
The right plan for a tight space.
Parking garages are designed to pack in as many vehicles as possible, making every inch of space critical. And in this case, Takeform devised a system to mount signs from the ceiling instead of on ground posts—saving room, improving visibility, and preventing sign damage.
Simple enough, right? Not so. Post-tension parking facilities such as these require special considerations to avoid damaging the embedded support cables within the concrete. We typically use ground-penetrating radar to locate and stay clear of those cables. However, for this client, we went the extra mile to work with Hilti Group to engineer suitable fasteners that require reduced penetration depth while providing the needed strength.
854 Ellicott Street serves several health facilities and needs to point visitors to the right one every time.
Takeform worked with longtime partner Hilti to create custom hardware for ceiling-mounted signage.
"Space is particularly limited in this garage's floor plan, so we didn't want to put a post-mount in front of parking spots that had special designations because we knew they would get hit by cars. If they'd been floor-mounted, we'd be replacing them constantly. With the ceiling-mounted, we haven't touched them since installation."
- Denielle Wilson, Takeform Project Manager
Brand-neutral doesn't mean bland.
Because the garage serves so many organizations, there's no single brand whose identity could dominate the space. But the look of the graphics system still needed to be distinctive and memorable. Takeform's team created a look and feel for the signage system that was both brand-neutral and eye-catching.
To avoid competing with the other identities, the system's style is noticeable – yet simple, thanks to the use of bright colors paired with a clean technical font.
"We created a design based on our Transit platform templates and chose a bright color scheme. From there, we created a color-coding scheme for the different levels."
- Denielle Wilson, Takeform Project Manager
Getting buy-in from every constituent.
While no one's brand identity was at stake, every constituent organization had a chance to weigh in on the designs—along with general contractor LeChase Construction and the garage's manager, Allpro Parking.
Next-level ingenuity. One less worry.
From doctors and nurses to patients and loved ones, everyone needs to get where they're going quickly when the destination is a hospital. Takeform helped this complex cluster of facilities ensure that people have an easier experience parking in one garage that serves many organizations.
Got a head-scratcher project that needs more brainpower? Let's talk.
Find out what Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus discovered in working with Takeform: a partner who welcomes complex challenges and considers every angle of the project—from arrival to departure.
Tell your brand story: Solutions for every market
Architects & Designers | Healthcare | Education | Corporate | Libraries | Senior Living | Government
PROJECT HIGHLIGHT:
854 Ellicott Street Parking Garage
Ramping up
stress-free parking
Takeform helps new downtown Buffalo garage guide people to multiple health facilities
A growing cluster of Buffalo, N.Y., hospitals is bringing more employees and more visitors to the neighborhood—along with more traffic. To make more room and centralize parking, the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus recently built the 854 Ellicott Street Parking Garage, a nine-level, $40 million project that boosted capacity from 800 to 1,800 spaces. The garage serves multiple distinct healthcare facilities that surround it, including the recently built John R. Oishei Children's Hospital, as well as Buffalo General Medical Center, Gates Vascular Institute, and University at Buffalo Medical Campus.
The Transit product line from Takeform, developed specifically for parking garage challenges, took center stage.
With so many different destinations linked to one parking facility, there was a need for clarity within the winding ramps of the space. For instance, signage needed to point patients to two separate ERs, one for adults and one for children. Employees had designated levels not for public use. And there was one connection in which a fourth-level exit led visitors through a skybridge to a second-floor hospital entrance, which could also lead to confusion (“What floor was I on again?").
Takeform worked with the client to develop innovative parking garage signage to help everyone find their way easily and get to the right destination quickly.
To prevent confusion, level four is deliberately color-coded to match the palette on the 2nd floor of the Oishei Children's Hospital it connects to.
Takeform used its Amplify window film to clearly direct the public to one of two distinct ERs served by the garage.
854 Ellicott Street serves several health facilities and needs to point visitors to the right one every time.
The right plan for a tight space.
Parking garages are designed to pack in as many vehicles as possible, making every inch of space critical. And in this case, Takeform devised a system to mount signs from the ceiling instead of on ground posts—saving room, improving visibility, and preventing sign damage.
Simple enough, right? Not so. Post-tension parking facilities such as these require special considerations to avoid damaging the embedded support cables within the concrete. We typically use ground-penetrating radar to locate and stay clear of those cables. However, for this client, we went the extra mile to work with Hilti Group to engineer suitable fasteners that require reduced penetration depth while providing the needed strength.
Takeform worked with longtime partner Hilti to create custom hardware for ceiling-mounted signage.
"Space is particularly limited in this garage's floor plan, so we didn't want to put a post-mount in front of parking spots that had special designations because we knew they would get hit by cars. If they'd been floor-mounted, we'd be replacing them constantly. With the ceiling-mounted, we haven't touched them since installation."
- Denielle Wilson, Takeform Project Manager
Brand-neutral doesn't mean bland.
Because the garage serves so many organizations, there's no single brand whose identity could dominate the space. But the look of the graphics system still needed to be distinctive and memorable. Takeform's team created a look and feel for the signage system that was both brand-neutral and eye-catching.
To avoid competing with the other identities, the system's style is noticeable – yet simple, thanks to the use of bright colors paired with a clean technical font.
"We created a design based on our Transit platform templates and chose a bright color scheme. From there, we created a color-coding scheme for the different levels."
- Denielle Wilson, Takeform Project Manager
Getting buy-in from every constituent.
While no one's brand identity was at stake, every constituent organization had a chance to weigh in on the designs—along with general contractor LeChase Construction and the garage's manager, Allpro Parking.
Next-level ingenuity. One less worry.
From doctors and nurses to patients and loved ones, everyone needs to get where they're going quickly when the destination is a hospital. Takeform helped this complex cluster of facilities ensure that people have an easier experience parking in one garage that serves many organizations.
Got a head-scratcher project that needs more brainpower? Let's talk.
Find out what Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus discovered in working with Takeform: a partner who welcomes complex challenges and considers every angle of the project—from arrival to departure.
Tell your brand story: Solutions for every market
Architects & Designers | Healthcare | Education | Corporate | Libraries | Senior Living | Government
