Work Oros Mountain School
Oros Mountain School, 2022
Signs you can read with gloves on
- Sector
- Education
- What we did
- Wayfinding, signage, identity
- Where
- The Pindus mountains, Epirus
- How long
- 5 months, over one winter
Wayfinding for a mountain school whose classrooms are a refuge, three trails and a valley.
0student rescue call-outs in the two winters since
The brief
Oros teaches climbing, avalanche safety and first aid. Students got lost between the school and the refuge, and the old signs were painted arrows on rocks that snow covered from December.
The real problem
A sign on a mountain is read at minus fifteen, in fog, by someone who is tired. Everything else is secondary.
What we did
Posts tall enough to stand above a metre of snow. Arrow boards in two colours only, orange for up and green for back to school. Times instead of distances, because nobody on a mountain thinks in kilometres. The contour lines of the valley became the school's identity, from the certificates to the jackets.
What we made
On the wall
We tested the boards in the studio freezer, then on the trail in February.
Every Friday at four, each project in progress is pinned up at real size. Why we print it
What changed
In the two winters since, no student has needed mountain rescue. Two neighbouring refuges have asked for the same system.
Our instructors used to walk the trail every morning to check the arrows. Now they teach.
Palette
Credits
- Creative direction
- Eleni Markou
- Wayfinding
- Jonas Weller
- Maps
- Chara Vlachou
- Posts
- the school's own instructors
More wayfinding, identity or print