Querini Stampalia Foundation

The Fondazione Querini Stampalia is a multifunctional space, experienced every day by a variety of users, with different needs. The design challenge was to ensure that the various types of users could easily find their way around a complex environment.

The Foundation is located in a historic Venetian palazzo that has been reinterpreted by some of Italy’s greatest architects and designers, including Michele De Lucchi, Carlo Scarpa and Mario Botta. A layered, complex space with strong styles and settings.

For this reason, too, the user finds himself immersed in a labyrinth of rooms with different functions: from the events space to the exhibition area, from the university library to the café. This project was even more complex due to the need to remain faithful to the existing communication system, designed by Studio Camuffo.

In this context, the primary need was to help users find their way around the spaces through a wayfinding project that would make it easier to experience the Foundation’s various environments. In order to achieve this, we studied the users’ needs and how they use the spaces.

Not all users need all the information at each moment along their journey. We studied the users’ behaviours in the spaces and we designed a series of decisional points, in which each type of user could get the needed information.

We also developed a system of icons that echoed the shapes that were already in the various architectural styles of the building.

The typographical choices also followed this direction, to prioritise readability and ease of use.

Similarly, we chose colours, finishes and materials already similar to the ones already used within the Foundation.

The supports on which the signs are placed have been designed in a modular way, so that the spaces can be constantly rearranged according to the events hosted at any given time.

The project we developed for the Fondazione Querini Stampalia allowed us to put ourselves to the test in an environment that would put any designer in awe, due to the astonishing architectonic environment we could work in.