South Dunedin
South Dunedin's community complex brings a library and public services together in one welcoming civic building. Findable designed, made and installed a bilingual wayfinding system that greets people in te reo Māori and English and guides them from the street to every service inside.
Challenge
A shared civic building serves a broad community - all ages, first languages and access needs - arriving for very different reasons. The wayfinding had to feel warm rather than institutional, work equally in te reo Māori and English, and make the library, meeting spaces and services obvious from the entrance.
It also had to carry the building's own identity, from the covered entry through to accessible and staff-only spaces, without ever feeling like clutter.
Designed, made and installed by Findable
One team took the complex from site walk to installed system - mapping the journeys, designing the bilingual family, fabricating every sign and fitting it on site.
Our Approach
We mapped how the community actually arrives - under the covered walkway, through the entry, to the desk - and built a welcome-first hierarchy around that path.
Te reo Māori and English carry equal weight throughout, with koru detailing drawn from the building's own design language. A clear 'Haere Mai / Welcome' sets the tone at the door, and directional and identification signs carry it through to every room.
The System
The installed system covers the whole visit:
- Covered-entry identification and welcome
- Bilingual directional and service signage
- Library, meeting and community-space identification
- Accessible, staff and back-of-house wayfinding
Outcome
People find the library and the service they came for without asking at the desk, and the building greets its community in its own languages.
Made and installed by the same team that designed it, the bilingual system is consistent end to end and ready to extend as services change.
End to end.
