How to design an archi­tec­tural metal pylon sign? Last year my com­pany Bau­mannSign we cre­ated a large metal pylon sig­nage in front of an cor­po­rate build­ing in Ams­ter­dam, The Nether­lands. This arti­cle will give you an insight on how the pylon was designed, build and man­u­fa­tured. Please let me know your find­ings on the final results.

Detail metal pylon signage

The orig­i­nal brief from the client/architect was to cre­ate a archi­tec­tural pylon which will draw attrac­tion in a cor­po­rate way, to have a direc­tional func­tion and space for var­i­ous logos and of text. In a short meet­ing we all agreed on the mate­ri­als; metal and the design brief was cre­ated as following:

• Metal (raw) materials
• Illu­mini­ated Signs
• Full color usage of logo
• Clear direc­tion to the office build­ings and street­names should be on the signs
• Cor­po­rate design
• Accesable from both sides
• Read­able from a distance

First sketches

For all my design work I use Adobe Illus­tra­tor CS3, I have worked with Illus­tra­tor since ver­sion 8 and it allows me to quickly cre­ate results in 2D and 3D. Within the first series of draw­ings var­i­ous vari­a­tions of a pen­cil were made because of the main rental com­pany in these office build­ings is Sta­ples. Soon we dis­coverd that pen­cils (or parts of them) where not work­ing as a sig­nage land­mark. After cre­at­ing sev­eral more designs the image as shown above became the final design. From there on I started work­ing on the build of the metal plyon design with the fol­low­ing demands:

• The con­crete foun­data­tion may not be visible
• The elec­tric­ity should be con­nected from the ground and not visible
• Illu­mi­nated ele­ments should be eas­ily replaced and should have a high pre­for­mance lighting
• Stain­less steel parts from the land­mark should be eas­ily replaced with damage
• Strong steel cas­ing and vandal-resistant

The Build

From sev­eral 3D angles the pylon sig­nage was drawn and the inter­nal ele­ments were designed, I have had close con­tact with the client/architect and con­struc­tor to enhance all fea­tures and make no or litte design changes from the final design. After all details and the steel cas­ing was drawn, every­thing was send to a con­struc­tion inge­nieur party to check if my cal­cu­la­tions are accord­ing stan­dards. When every­thing was approved and the plac­ing request was granted  from the com­mune, the build could be started. For all visual metal ele­ments we used the mate­r­ial metal Stain­less Steel Aisi 316 K320. In inside steel cas­ing was made of square pipelines welled together and pow­der coated to reduce cor­ro­sion on the sev­eral parts.

Illu­mi­nated signs

The pylon sig­nage should be read­able from a dis­tance and the client requested to add the logo to the signs, this increases the rec­og­niz­abil­ity of the com­pa­nies in the office build­ings. To cre­ate a unique look and feel to the land­mark I added detail to the illu­mi­nated signs by a small stain­less steel square bor­der and let the plex­i­glas plate fall back a lit­tle, which will draw the atten­tion by the detail. In inside illu­mi­nated equip­ment con­sits of a sin­gle TL-element mounted at the top of the sign, packed in a U-shape ele­ment the light is directed down­wards. With a bend mirror-plexiglas the light is trans­ported towards the plex­i­glas plate, allow­ing a high reflect dif­fus (white) effect. By using these ele­ments not only you will get a high per­for­mance illu­mini­ated sign but also reduce the costs of using just one TL-element. We have used white satin opaal plex­i­glas plates for a non-reflecting surface.

Installing the Pylon Signage

At the loca­tion where the land­mark was being placed a con­crete plate was placed with a dia­mater of 2 x 2 meters weigh­ing over 1600 KG. In this con­crete plate sev­eral steel bolds where mounted with a chem­i­cal brace. The land­mark was then placed onto the bolds using a lift­ing ele­ment placed on top of the land­mark. All the stones where placed back into posi­tion and the ground and the illu­mi­nated signs where placed into the fit­tings in the pylon.

Final results

Our com­pany very much enjoyed this project and we would like to thank the archi­tect and all par­ties involved. Let me know what you think of this stain­less steel landmark?