Located a stone’s throw from the historic Brooklands motor and aviation museum and the aerodrome that predates it, Dakota’s name is itself a nod to the rich history of aviation in the area. In the first six months of 2017, the building’s owners had it stripped back to a shell and rebuilt to an extremely high specification throughout by contractors Oakmont Construction. It now boasts more than 35,000 feet of modern, luxury office space over four well-appointed floors.

Signbox was commissioned by the contractors to cap the project off with stylish signage to reflect the building’s modern, contemporary feel and to reflect something of the local area’s heritage.

Signbox met with the architects, TateHindle, to discuss their detailed designs and how best to interpret them into functional effective signage. Over July and August this year, Signbox then completed the manufacture and installation of interior and exterior signs. Inside the entrance lobby, Signbox installed a backlit, painted glass reception directory with a polished aluminium frame. For the exterior of the building they constructed and fitted skyline signage for the top of the entrance portico and to each elevation. At street level they also added a fabricated perimeter sign and car park entrance monolith. All of the exterior signage is powder coated stainless steel with LED illumination, controlled by solar switch.

“The architects had very detailed designs and it was our job to interpret those to deliver a functional and effective finished product,” says Signbox Director, Matthew Wilkins. “The high elevation signage at the top of the entrance portico needed to be highly secure and finished all round to conceal the internal LED’s from the view of those looking out from the top floor offices and roof terrace. We also needed to account for the angle of the portico roof in fixing the letters in place. The signage on either elevation of the portico was manufactured from the same powder coated, stainless steel as the portico cladding it was mounted on. We added a highlight LED strip around the edges of the letters to provide halo illumination.”

“This was a fantastic project to work on,” Wilkins concludes. “We’ve worked with Oakmont Construction a number of times before and always found them a pleasure to do business with. We were delighted to be able to deliver such an accurate reflection of the architect’s designs, on time and on budget, putting the finishing touch on an ambitious refit project that has created a highly desirable, luxury office space.”