UI LABS Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII)

The 94,000 SF lab unites key university and industry partners and enables them to collaborate side-by-side as they work to reinvent digital manufacturing for the 21st century. Comprehensive experiential graphics bring both cohesion and inspiration to UI Labs’ DMDII interior.

For SOM, as an employee of SOM
Awards: Interior Design MakeitWork, Spark Award for Communication, Spark Award for Space, ULI Chicago Chapter Vision Award, AIA Chicago Distinguished Building Award

Wayfinding white stripes guide from the building’s entry to key locations throughout the interior. The stripes were designed to accent the floor’s raw concrete and provide navigational cues resembling a circuit board which cleverly expresses DMDII’s mission for facilitating digital-era solutions for US manufacturing. Each stripe runs along the floor and up the wall of its destination space, intersecting with wall graphics. These graphics use three-dimensional space to add helpful and beautiful elements throughout the facility.

Two sculptural installations in the town hall offer recognition to UI Labs’ partners while demonstrating the capabilities of digital manufacturing. One sculptural installation behind the reception desk acknowledges UI Labs’ elite partners via printed, 3D hexagonal plaques. The second sculptural installation displays the names of university and industrial partners as laser-cut typography at the bottom of the town hall’s long wall. These installations were designed to accommodate growth over time.

A 60-foot magnetic exhibit anchors the top of the town hall’s long wall. Visible from the outside, this surface will serve as a display space for evolving UI Labs ideas and projects: magnetic exhibits can be changed out as desired.