BHC

Broadway Housing Communities is a nationally recognized pioneer in developing permanent, dignified housing for homeless families and adults in New York. Founded in 1983, BHC is known for its unconventional model, which demonstrates that access to high-quality early childhood education and the arts helps improve outcomes for residents. The organization currently oversees seven developments, being the Sugar Hill its most recent one and the first developed from the ground up. Designed by the renowned architecture company Adjaye Associates, this mixed-use complex brings together permanent housing with early education and educational advocacy through a preschool that serves up to 200 community children, and access to the arts via a new cultural institution, the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling.

Pedro and the Pentagram team designed the new identity for the non-profit organization, as well as the identity, signage system, and environmental graphics for its most recent initiative, the Sugar Hill Project.

Project Credits
Pentagram
Eddie Opara
Brankica Harvey
Pedro Mendes
Yo-E Ryou

Awards
SEGD
2017

Client
Broadway Housing Communities

Architect
Adjaye Associates

Photography Credits
Pentagram
Adjaye Associates

The BHC logomark has a brushstroke texture that represents one of the most basic artistic expressions. The same language was carried over to the Sugar Hill logomark and was used to recreate the building shape in a variety of dynamic expressions.

The Sugar Gill building name is located on the corner of 155th street with St Nicholas Ave. The exterior signage typography is cut out of an angle and facing the street corner in order to increase the readability from distance and different angles.

A custom icon set was designed based on the Calibre typeface and mimicking the children's anatomy. The icons were applied to the signage system and used from small to supergraphic scale and a wide range of applications.

To increase awareness and interaction between the children and the signage, most of the graphic elements were moved to the floor.

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