RIBA Timepiece Competition

PARKdesigned recently entered the RIBA Timepiece Competition in partnership with Network Rail. The competition invited proposals for the design of a new timepiece to be used across the British rail network.

We started the design process exploring a circle similar to the roundel in the same colour as the Rail Symbol 2. It brings together imagery across the rail network such as train wheels, signals and stations on a rail map. Hands based of the shape of the lower case L of the rail alphabet were added to create an analogue clock face which would integrate seamlessly with the new way-finding.

We incorporated a digital face into the timepiece to make it as accessible and useful as possible. The inner circle will house a digital clock face. Simple markers mirroring the geometry of the house and minute hands were added to the perimeter to aid time reading without cluttering the design.

The competition brief goes on to say -

Network Rail has purposefully elected to use the generic term ‘timepiece’ rather than ‘clock’ for indicating and measuring time in a room, on the wall of a building, or on a computer screen. Network Rail wishes to avoid the conventions and connotations associated with referring to such instruments as ‘clocks’. Through the design ideas competition process, Network Rail is seeking to explore and interrogate how time and the passage of time is best depicted on the UK national railway.