Gwynns Falls Trail Signage
Gwynns Falls Trail Signage
Baltimore, Maryland
The Gwynns Falls Trail is a 22-mile, continuous multi-modal trail connecting users from the Inner Harbor to Baltimore County via the Gwynns Falls stream. Not only does this trail trace one of Baltimore’s three major waterways, it also traverses the full range of Baltimore’s urban fabric: from dense, downtown conditions, through historic rowhome neighborhoods, and, ultimately, through one of the nation’s largest urban parks – Leakin Park. As part of its mission to make the trail more usable, Baltimore City Recreation and Parks (BCRP) hired Unknown Studio, together with Toole Design, to design a wayfinding system for the trail. The team provided professional and technical services to survey existing signs, design across diverse conditions, complete permit drawings for sign installation via Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT) permit process, and to prepare sign fabrication drawings for bid for the Gwynns Falls Lower Segment from Carroll Park to the Inner Harbor.
The team’s design solution carefully places signs responding to the complicated existing conditions found throughout the Gwynns Falls Trail. Further, the design team identified an opportunity to unify Baltimore’s wider trail network through a new, “rustic” sign type where trails pass through heavily wooded, naturalized areas – a unique feature of Baltimore’s vast parks system. These signs celebrate a sense of “escape” from the City. As the lighting and context in these areas are drastically different from the rest of the urban context of the trail, the team also tested various color and material options to ensure high visibility while maintaining consistency across the signage system.
Project timeline: 2021 - 2022
Client: Baltimore City Recreation and Parks
Scope: Concept through Construction Documents
Project Type: Transportation | Urban | Wayfinding
Size: 22 miles
Partners:
Toole Design
