Architecture with purpose

Voodoo DesignWorks delivers characterful branding to a notable Bristol landmark…

As anyone familiar with North Bristol will know, the lower reaches of the A38 Gloucester Road as it finds its way toward Bristol City Centre, is home to lots of businesses, primarily shops, most with their own brand to promote. Rather than reflecting the complexion of retail more generally in the UK, with all-too-familiar brands and businesses dominating, the Gloucester Road rewards with what you might call ‘good finds,’ unexpected gems among the scribble of local colour that keeps people coming back.

The Gloucester Road used to be a carriageway for most of the traffic headed to and from Bristol before newer Motorways sucked all the activity away. Look along the A38 today Gloucester Road today, and the roadside architecture is punctuated with a building or two of some merit, befitting a time when the A38 was one of the region’s main conduits.

One such building of some vintage is Bristol North Baths. As might be inferred from the name, the building was once home to a swimming pool serving the good people of North Bristol. The building itself is Grade II listed reflecting its importance and its Edwardian influences. It didn’t in fact open as a pool when the last brick was laid after construction began in 1915. The very attractive building was instead home to a facility making aircraft wings. Purpose then served, the building was handed back to the council in 1919 and opened as a pool in 1922.

The new pool was unheated and though people were said to be made of tougher stuff ‘back in the day,’ few customers wanted to take the waters in winter. Problem solved. During winter, the pool had a deck laid over it, and the ‘Baths became a dance hall. The ‘Baths has also seen service as a Police Station, and it raised its head in an episode of Only Fools and Horses.

Bristol North Baths today, still answers to the name but it now houses some of Bristol’s most attractive and desirable office space. You would have never known it to look at the building though which is why we got a call to help give the ‘Baths an identity that would make the new purpose on its continuing journey more apparent.

Here at the Voodoo DesignWorks we take our customers’ needs very seriously but on this occasion we all had to be minded that we were being asked to interfere with a listed local treasure. We saw our job in terms of obligation toward a business needing to promote itself, and both reflecting and respecting local heritage. Our customer saw it in those terms too and so it felt like a partnership advancing as we proposed our ideas.

A detailed inventory of all we did at BNB wouldn’t speak to the quality of the job overall. It’s a story rooted though in picking up on design cues from the building itself, the heritage it has embraced, and its forward-looking purpose. As things stand now, with Voodoo having worked its ways, Bristol North Baths clearly has a new story to tell when the familiar landmark is observed.

While Voodoo DesignWorks plays centre-stage in the role of a signmaker, we’re a designer of no small repute too. We went right back to DNA-level brand development before even venturing a sign-design for BNB. We designed and produced a detailed brand-bible that re-tasked elements of BNB prior identity and bought it forward in a form that all agreed didn’t require any mental gymnastics to process. The impression our primary logo makes is immediate, it’s legible, and it registers as its own man in terms of originality. Our colourways really sing and the whole work unites to present a cohesive, well managed brand that’s used like the valuable asset we’ve made it.

Our brand bible informed all our works from that point. We designed and built a very impressive sign structure that’s now out front and is visible from lots of high-traffic vantage points up and down the busy A38. The sign is entirely original, that’s to say it’s not based on a component system. It’s fabricated from the raw elements it comprises and its cube-like proportions counterpoint the architecture that’s its host while giving the BNB brand an attractive and legible position on the building. And on the road.

We made liberal use of digital print around the entrance which gives the office emphatic ownership of the building but does so without harming or moving a brick that defines the frontage. It sits there making a big, orange splash, recessed into the iconic arch that countless thousands of swimmers would have walked through in times past. ‘Bristol North Baths’ still radiates from the stonework above our knockout graphics.

Inside, the space is beautiful. We take our hats off to the people who designed and fitted the building to make it fit for its new purpose. For our part, we supplied numerous identity continuations and graphics reflecting the ‘Baths’ origins and worked in a little conspicuity manifestation for the extensive glazed surfaces.

So, that’s how a treasured and listed building finds its future. It takes a sensitive new owner with a real sense of mission and connection with the bricks and the story behind them, and the work of some talented designers you’ll find just up the A38 at the Voodoo DesignWorks. Drop in and say hello if you’re passing. We’d be delighted to discuss your project and our client at BNB would be happy to discuss your office space needs too.