Cambridge Crossing
Navigating Through a Neighborhood
Cambridge Crossing is a full neighborhood in motion — offices, residences, retail, and green space, all expanding together. Wayfinder led the custom exterior wayfinding for the entire campus, working alongside MS Sign for fabrication and installation and Top Dog Design as design partner. The result is a system that helps people find their way today and has room to grow as the campus does.
The Challenge
A building doing this many things at once — produce distribution, retail, food production, youth programming, organizational headquarters — requires signage that works at every scale. Exterior sign types had to navigate Providence permitting along a gateway corridor between downtown and Upper South Providence. Inside, the wayfinding had to serve farmers dropping off produce, community members visiting the market, students coming for programming, and businesses operating out of the rental suites — often at the same time.
Our Approach
We started with a site survey and a conversation about who walks through those doors. SCLT’s mission is straightforward: they help people grow food. The signage had to carry that same clarity. We developed a sign type plan that covered the full building — exterior identification, entry directories, suite identification, program space labeling, and interior directional — then coordinated permitting and selected fabrication partners whose finish work matched the quality of Union Studio’s renovation. Every sign decision ran through one question: does this make the building easier for the community to use?
The Result
A complete interior and exterior signage system installed ahead of the building’s public opening. Exterior signs establish SCLT’s presence on Broad Street and connect pedestrians to the adjacent Somerset Hayward urban youth farm. Interior wayfinding moves visitors naturally through a building with a lot happening at once. The system is designed to grow with the organization — new suite tenants and program spaces can be added without starting over.
Client
DivcoWest
Location
Cambridge, MA
Date
2024-Present
Industry
Mixed-Use Development, Life Science
Scope
Open space identification, pedestrian wayfinding
Partner
MS Sign (Fabrication & Installation), Top Dog Design (Design Partner)
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