Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
CASE STUDY
Buenos Aires Underground (Subte)
10-24 This photograph
from 2004 shows a
subway entrance before
the Subte system was
implemented. How to
replace chaos with order
and clarity became the
question.
Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is a
culturally diverse city with a population of
approximately twelve million people. The
firm Diseño Shakespear has made a lasting
impression on many facets of the city's visual
culture and information infrastructure. Ronald
Shakespear, founder and principal of this
multidisciplinary firm, describes his design
mission as “making the city legible.”
A dramatic example of this quest is
the Buenos Aires subway system, a mega-
wayfinding project designed by Ronald
Shakespear and his sons, Lorenzo and Juan.
The system inherited the name Subte (from
subterráneo ), city residents' colloquial term
for their subway. This memorable term
functions as a brand, like the Tube in London,
the Métro in Paris, the Metro in Washington
D.C., and the Subway in New York.
The Buenos Aires subway system
originated in 1913 with the introduction of
a first station and grew rapidly in later years
to keep pace with a burgeoning population.
Before the design transformation by Diseño
Shakespear, the “system” constituted nothing
more than a chaotic collection of vernacular
elements (Fig. 10-24 ).
Between 1995 and 2007, Diseño
Shakespear pursued separate stages of
the subway's branding and wayfinding
transformation for the existing five lines.
The team relied on their established design
methodology: research, analysis, synthesis,
drafts, final project, implementation.
Sketches and graphic notations served to
visualize and synthesize ideas and concepts
(Fig. 10-25 ).
A successful wayfinding system relies
on a combination of on-site research and
what Ronald Shakespear refers to as “verified
intuition.” Two fundamental criteria must
govern the signs in any successful system:
1) they must be easy to find and their
locations predictable, and 2) they must be
easy to understand. Shakespear believes that
designers have an obligation “to listen to
people, to decipher their codes, to discover
their yearnings, and to give them an answer.”
10-26 An early subway map lacks the typographic
organization, hierarchy, and diagrammatic clarity
required for adequate interpretation.
10-25 Process sketches
seek to define the basic
elements of the Subte
system.
 
 
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