To commemorate those employees who have devoted more than 25 years of service, Banco Popular of Puerto Rico commissioned a typographic mural to exhibit their names.

A mix of aluminum, stainless steel, translucent resin, seaweed, and frosted acrylic were used in the design of the composition.

Custom fixtures were designed for the particular needs of the project.

A detail of the installation system used to assemble the different pieces together.

PROJECT CREDITS _ Client Banco Popular de Puerto Rico Client Representative Arq. Jorge González Ríos Creative Direction, Graphic Design, Typography Alberto Rigau, AIGA Industrial Design Alex Martínez of Jorge Rigau FAIA ArquitectosFabrication Rótulos Villegas, Pro Glass, 3Form

Arqpoli, the School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico reaches 15 years of age. It commemorates the milestone with a celebration for its students, alums and faculty members.

Having already designed a book where it documented individual projects from the school, this time around, a poster was designed to highlight the iconic project types that students experience as they undergo the program.

The invitation, which expands as a person interacts with it, was sent closed in a 9in x 12in envelope to highlight the number “15″.

As the person used the invitation, the thought “15 years” was revealed by typography as the accordion expanded.

Having worked with 3M before, a strategy was developed to directly impact the convention center’s walls. Post-its, Scotch Tapes, and other related 3M brand materials were used in the creation of these graphic interventions. A carpet-graphic was designed to impact the environment in a fashion-like way, providing a run-way for guests to walk on.

Guests would follow the run-way style floor graphic to the entrance of the area known as The Shops.

The run-way style floor graphic.

At the entrance of The Shops.

The 3M Scotch Brand Mural

Manipulating Post-Its to manipulate a surface.

Manipulating spaces through pixelation.

PROJECT CREDITS: Client, 3M Puerto Rico Concept and Design, Estudio Interlínea with Lorna Ramos, from 3M Puerto Rico | Creative Director, Alberto Rigau | Concept Strategists, Alberto Rigau, Miguel Ortíz, Johann Sasso | Production Assistants, Eric Barrios, Juan Carlos Rubayo, Edna Rodríguez from 3M Puerto Rico, José Pagán, Victor Blay, Tamara Morales, Heidi Vidal, Cedric Sasso, Luis Cerda, Gerinaldo Rivera.

The typographic families were selected to complement each other, but at times, to provide deep enough contrast in language and statement.

A series of patterns were developed for the execution of the complete graphic language. In the stationery, the patterns take on a protagonic role.

The Garden of Amendment / Jardín del Desagravio
Architecture by Jorge Rigau, FAIA
Graphic Design / Typography by Alberto Rigau

This architecture project, as commissioned by the Municipality of Hormigueros, required the provision of a code-complaint ramp to connect a higher level of town with a lower one.

The problem was reinterpreted in expanded urban terms, given the ramp’s adjacency to key civic buildings (City Hall, a new School for Visual Arts, a Public Transportation Terminal) and other pedestrian connections and civic spaces. A garden was incorporated to enhance the ramp’s importance.

Named “ The Garden of Amendment”, the space honors the town’s most important 19th Century historic figure: Segundo Ruiz Belvis, who – ironically – was forced by Spanish colonial authorities to live in exile most of his life. Adamant in his liberal, pro abolitionist ideas, he never ceased to criticize the local government from afar.

The specific selection of plant material also honors those in exile. All ground floor vegetation is green, while flowers only appear atop a pergola: these are from epiphytes, plants that grow without direct contact with the ground… like people away from home manage to do.

A steel wainscot in the garden area “apologizes” to Ruiz Belvis, who had to live and flourish away from home unwillingly. Simultaneously, it acknowledges Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians, and young professionals from the Caribbean that, in recent years, have been forced to leave their homeland and settle elsewhere…

The text on the wainscot reads:

Garden of Amendment

This garden apologizes for those whose lives were forced to take root – and thrive – away from their homeland.

In amendment, the children of Hormigueros dedicate this garden to Segundo Ruiz Belvis and to many other immigrants because we don’t forget that, from afar, they have made the country ever larger:

slaves, farmers, workers, Cubans, Haitians, Dominicans and young professionals alike .

Hon Peter J. Garcia, Mayor
Municipality of Hormigueros

Estudio Interlínea was brought in to help with the visual language of the new publication series.

BOOK CREDITS _ Client State Historic Preservation Office of Puerto Rico Historical Investigation and Content Arleen Pabón Charneco Design and Concept Alberto Rigau, estudio interlínea Typography Bembo Printing Asia Pacific Offset Printing Rep Johanna Rodríguez

PRINTING SPECS _ Print Run 2,000 Color 4/4 Paper Japanese Art matte, 140 grams Binding Hard-Cover Smythe Sewn

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To make the video more interesting, I used the music track Again and Again by The Bird and the Bee. As of October 11, 2009, the official website of the band is offline and the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine was not useful in accessing its contact information. I will keep trying so that I can ask for a formal permit to keep the song in the video. If it is not granted, the song will be removed.

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PROJECT CREDITS _ Concept Lorna Ramos, 3M Puerto Rico Design and Execution Miguel Ortiz & Alberto Rigau Assistants Denisse Rodríguez, Juan Carlos Rubayo, Sofía Acevedo

During September of 2009, Puerto Rico’s professional college of architects and landscape architects awarded the annual medals in architecture. These awards, named after Ricardo Alegría, are given to individuals and/or entities who are not directly related to the discipline of architecture but who have contributed to the field in a way that can be evidenced in a substantial body of work.

Previously, this prestigious recognition had been given four times, and to my knowledge, recipients were given only a certificate. This year, Estudio Interlínea gifted the college with a design of commemorative piece to be handed out in the naming ceremony.

The initial challenge was to suggest the quality of the object. Even though the award uses the term “medal“, I inclined for a piece that could be exhibited by the recipient in a more efficient manner, thus the creation of a table-top piece.

Conceptually, the composition represents the larger social context (outer square) inside which architecture unfolds (smaller square). The recipient reaches out from this larger context and crosses the architectural field (diagonally placed piece of glass), leaving his mark (smaller aluminum triangle on the lower right side of the inner square). He or she eventually keeps moving into other aspects. (the extension of the piece of glass beyond the smaller square).

*For those of you with a nerdy inclination towards typography, the initials of the award’s name are abstractly embedded in the design, with a lower case r on the left side of the diagonal piece of glass and an upper case A it’s right side.

Conceived by the architectural firm, Jorge Rigau FAIA, Architects, the project was designed to garner support from government officials, institutions, and the general public for the development of Isabela’s irrigation channels as a key ecotourism attraction in Puerto Rico. The “canales” travel across plains, mountains, and forests of varying microclimate, flora, fauna, and views. Maintenance paths that run continuously next to them could today be refashioned as nature trails accessible to the general public, children, senior citizens, and handicapped people alike. This pilot project set out to prove the feasibility of this initiative.

After public access to these facilities had been denied for eighty years, one kilometer of channels was opened up for two days, attracting an audience of over 3,000 registered people, including key decision-makers like the Island’s Interim Governor. Environmental leaders and university professors joined the long lines of visitors from all over the Island.Advocacy is often linked to demonstrations, more than often committed to stop something from happening. In our case, we chose to demonstrate otherwise: How something can, in fact, happen. Letters of support have started to come and decision makers – already engaged – have invited us to sit and dialogue. This is what we planned for.

Participants were instructed about the history and design of the irrigation system, how it works, its cultural impact, and the changes endured by the neighboring rural landscape. Oversize words in environmentally-sensitive foam were “sprinkled” along the route to underline key questions concerning both the system and the proposed project: WHAT? WHERE? HOW? WHY? WHEN?

Professionals, academics, architecture and landscape architecture students – as well as volunteers – guided tours along the canal to make visitors aware of the potential of these trails from which the Island’s natural landscape and its early-20th century industrial heritage can be enjoyed.

The local Architects and Landscape Architects Foundation funded the pilot project, which included a day dedicated to K-12 schools within the canal region. Participants were requested to fill an assessment form, freely formatted to accommodate ideas, concerns, and recommendations. Upon completing the forms, each person received an informative brochure, specially designed to urge everyone to action.

Insertion of texts within the landscape owes much to the reinterpretation of precedents: Robert Smithson’s site-specific works; Jenny Holzer’s linkage of words to movement; Robert Indiana’s supersized treatment of typeface; as well as Dieter Kienast’s joint validation of typographic strokes and counters, using the latter as windows unto the landscape.

In endorsement of sustainable tourism practices, local involvement was integral to the initiative. Community members assisted in the organization, played host of the event, and offered bits of oral history. Local high school students that are enrolled in a tourism-guide training program led the walking tours. A map of neighboring restaurants and establishments was specially designed for the event and distributed among all assistants, urging them to sponsor them.

All photography by Gus Pantell.

PROJECT CREDITS

Executed with the support of the Foundation for the Association of Architecture and Landscape Architecture of Puerto Rico and the collaboration of the county of Isabela, the Energy Authority (AEE) and the School of Landscape Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.

Concept and Project Design Jorge Rigau FAIA, Architects Project Coordination Miguel Ortíz Graphic Design Alberto Rigau, Estudio Interlínea Archaeological Consultant Gus Pantell Construction and Renovation Consultant Beatriz del Cueto Landscape Consultant Maria Isabel Rodríguez

Due to the nature of the project, it is here presented in full. It was carried out by Alberto Rigau, Cady Bean-Smith, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Sidney Fritts, Lauren Waugh, Caroline Prietz, Tania Allen and Marty Maxwell Lane in the 2008 fall Graduate Design Studio with Prof. Meredith Davis and Prof. Santiago Piedrafita at the NC State University College of Design.

Students worked in pairs, each identifying a particular area to work in. As the following slides progress, the students responsible for each of the projects are credited. I was responsible, along with Cady Bean-Smith, of the production of a PSA television animation. (scroll to last student project)