ARCHITECTURE FOR SOCIAL GAIN

To celebrate their 350th birthday Saint-Gobain designed a visual standard and logo to be used for all international birthday promotion and activity. The Architecture for Social Gain Awards was commissioned as part of these celebrations and as such had to form it’s own identity in SA whilst responding to the international guidelines.

The brief was to develop a stand alone logo for the architecture awards that embodied the values and strategic principles of Saint-Gobain in a way that resonates with architects and to position the awards as a celebration of architecture endorsed by the company.

PEOPLE, BUILDINGS and PLANET are the core pillars of the Saint-Gobain Habitat strategy. We designed a pictogram emblem using the same line weight and style of the international CI that represented these 3 values as individual parts of a a circular whole. The entire system creates considered architecture and construction practice that benefits society as a whole which is why we chose the architectural genre for submissions of SOCIAL GAIN.

To further the brand principles of working as part of a system for continued sustainability, this is the first architecture awards program to have 3 different categories as represented by the posters. The FUTURE category is for conceptual work and visionary thinking of how architecture could answer the needs of people and the environment in years to come. The BUILT category is for projects already completed and the ADOPT-A –SCHOOL call for proposals is for submissions to assist pre-identified schools in need of good architectural design. To keep in step with Saint-Gobains reputation as being a leader in innovative materials the posters are printed on tree free – Rock paper.

The design of the trophy and the graphic of the posters was an opportunity to take the 2 dimensional flat logo into a 3 dimensional demonstration of the holistic concept of the different elements that have to come together to create spaces for people where all aspects are needed for true SOCIAL GAIN to be delivered. The trophies have been spun out of aluminum with machine cut struts that bring the 3 principles or values alive in a globe. The colored acrylic is a new coating process called Fantachrome that allows any material to take on bright or metallic chrome hues. This took ordinary acrylic and created a luminescent ,colour rich, glass like appearance. An innovation in a combination of materials and treatments that created a hefty, original trophy that carries the values of the brand and is desirable as an object to celebrate excellence in architecture.