Company: Carbone Smolan Agency
Title: Senior Designer
Project scope: Exhibit Design, Posters

Recepient of SEGD Merit Award
https://segd.org/content/wl-gore-capabilities-center

The Gore story is complex and rich with information. The developer and manufacturer of high-performance fluorocarbon polymers (including GORE-TEX) assembled a multidisciplinary team of designers, architects, and fabricators to help translate the science behind its innovative products into a visible and understandable brand expression.

Our team led the design and development of Gore’s 6,000 sq.ft. marketplace known as the Gore Capabilities Center. The goal was to communicate and celebrate the technical range of Gore’s signature product—Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The center needed to showcase the products containing PTFE and to make scientific information accessible to its existing and potential clients from a wide range of industries.

Inside the Capabilities Center, the Gore story is told through six exhibits—Biological, Chemical, Physical, Analytical, Electromagnetic, and PTFE. From an aerial perspective, the six exhibits are configured in a hexagonal shape inspired by the benzene (C6H6) molecule. Each exhibit module contains six panels that introduce the area of science Gore is involved in and provides examples of relevant Gore products. The external walls feature macroscopic views of the various forms of PTFE. And, the overhead centerpiece sculpture made of GORE Tenara fabric suggests the complex geometry of the basic PTFE molecule.

The palette of powdercoated steel, aluminum, Lexan, and glass were meant to create a laboratory atmosphere. The laboratory experience was further amplified by the subtle use of Gore’s corporate colors of white, black, and silver accented with small amounts of red; outlined typography and technical line art drawings of the products using PTFE.