Lorenc+Yoo Design – The Story Behind the Design
Lorenc+Yoo Design’s fairytale-like Opalus — a residential development located in Guangzhou, China — proves that masterful design can tell the story of a place in a way that words can hardly convey. A stroll up the regal, lighted stairway and through a garden guarded by beautiful fairy sculptures, transports the resident to a setting left out of any history book.
Graphis felt that such a successful marketing narrative deserved recognition, which is why we are pleased to award Lorenc+Yoo Design’s a Platinum in the Graphis Design Annual 2014.
Opalus was commissioned by Vanke, China’s leading residential development company. The concept was ground in a story, which the firm might prefer to tell themselves:
Opalus is a place where people and families live to be inspired. As such, Lorenc+Yoo not only created a functional signage system, but a fantastical series of design details that immerse residents and visitors alike in a novel fairy tale.
Combining vital elements from Chinese folklore with details from the West, Lorenc+Yoo created an entire mythology of how the very site of Oplaus came into being following a fantastical struggle between fairies and dragons.
“The fairies were mischievous beings, fluttering and flying and barely being noticed by man,” the story began. “Their favorite items to collect were opals. The fairies stored their opals in a massive cave inside a tall mountain. Only they knew where this cave was located, and only they could enter it.”
“the cave was called Opalus.”
Opalus is just one example of the high quality and innovation that the firm infuses into each project. Globally recognized as an elite place-making firm, Lorenc+Yoo has created award-winning design work for the Mayo Clinic, Sony-Ericsson and Samsung, among many others.
The firm also won a Graphis Gold award in our Design Annual 2014, for Sky Praise, a design for the Christiana Mall Center Court, in addition to a Graphis Gold award in our Design Annual 2013 for their Brookfield Trade Show Exhibit.
The Design Annual 2014 competition features the most compelling and influential design of the year. Prizes consist of gold and platinum awards, with winning entries published in the Design Annual 2014. To submit your own work to the Design Annual 2015 competition, click here.
To check out more work by Lorenc+Yoo Design, click here.
Photographer: Lorenc+Yoo Design
Category: Environmental
Title: ‘Opalus’
