In collaboration with the society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD- Sydney Chapter), PAM Wayfinding played host to an extraordinary panel event last Wednesday night.

Joined by an expert panel we explored the recent $1billion renovations at the University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) city campus. With a ‘smart’ economy blooming, navigating the best solutions for spaces like UTS is no small achievement.

Stephen Minning, Director of BrandCulture and PAM Wayfinding hosted the panel guiding us through the journey so far and into the future. He began by chatting with Bryce Hutchinson, Senior Building Information Manager and Project Manager at UTS. They discussed the vision that drove UTS from their city campus master plan to selecting BrandCulture to bring the vision into reality. Driven by accessibility, efficiency and the UTS passion for innovation, Bryce described his vision for a more effective wayfinding system.

Bringing this from vision to design, Nick Bannikoff, Design Manager at BrandCulture and Bruce Duyshart, Director of Meld Strategies. Between them they created the iconic yellow totems now seen throughout the UTS campus. Navigation, they explained, is a key component to creating a truly smart campus and the navigation itself must be designed to support every possible situation.

A combination of Nick’s design and Bruce’s technological inputs turned these totems into smart navigation points. Enabled with QR scanners and a digital handshake make information accessible for all.  These totems are designed to enrich on the day to day needs of UTS students, staff and visitors.

With navigation and accessibility supported in one space and all other sign assets created to support this asset, UTS is well on their way having installed over 8,000 signs to date.

At the heart of this navigation system was PAM, Steve Plummer, Head of Product at PAM explained. Having taken the project from the start by auditing over 8,000 signs in 19 buildings across 110 floors, PAM became the centralised source of truth. Supporting the designs for BrandCulture and Meld’s technology strategy, it allowed Bryce to drive the project from implementation to maintenance whilst creating a digital wayfinding experience. The entire wayfinding system is now supported, updated and managed within the PAM platform ensuring its integrity for years to come.

As for the future, that’s where Nigel O’Connell stepped-in. Presenting on behalf of Displayground, Nigel showcased a prototype of the generative data visualisation display currently being created in collaboration with UTS and PAM that resonates with the University’s latest rebrand. PAM provided navigation data from the personal wayfinding app back to Displayground where Displayground created bespoke animations for UTS.  These touchless experiential screens provided a sneak-peak for the event attendees on how the use of data from the built environment can create branded experiences.   

Overall it was a fantastic event which PAM may take the event format on the road. We were grateful to welcome many of the SEGD-Sydney Chapter members attend the event. We are very pleased to announce that a recording of the panel will be made available later this week.