De School

Situated in Amsterdam West, ‘De School’ is a new social club, restaurant, gallery, gym, and community gathering point situated in a repurposed school building by the Dutch architect J. B. Ingwersen, which dates from 1973. The venue’s identity was based upon its floorplan, which reflects the modular organization of spaces within the Brutalist inspired building. By revealing the underlying organizational grid of the identity, it forms an essential component of it; components can be removed, added, or rearranged in new formations, reflecting its former and current interior. The identity is anchored around the venue’s digital platform–which is undoubtedly the aspect most visible to its community–and extends from there to its printed brochures, posters, etc. A monospaced font, which echoes that formerly found on typewriters, anchors the identity to the time period during which its building, ‘the school’, was originally constructed. The font balances the former; together, along with the revealed grid, the identity imparts a dynamicism within the modular orientation of the venue’s public ‘face’.

Year	2015
Client	De School
Location	Amsterdam, NL