This was never a signage problem. It was a storytelling problem.
Microsoft's East Campus is being rebuilt as one of the most sustainable corporate campuses in the world — geoexchange wells drilled hundreds of feet into the ground, buildings framed in mass timber, parking lots turned back into salmon-bearing streams.
But a sign can only tell you about something you can stand next to. The deepest sustainability work on campus is, almost by definition, the part you can't see: buried infrastructure, material choices sealed inside a wall, systems humming behind a locked door.
The brief revealed itself in a cut. One sign — about salvaged wood reused in the interior furniture — was removed from the project with a single note: not clearly visible from the exterior; cover through other means.
The opportunity emerged during content planning. One sustainability story about salvaged wood reused in interior furniture was removed from the signage program because it wasn't visible from outside the building. That decision exposed a larger problem: physical signs had reached their limit.
Rather than designing more signage, I designed a digital layer that extends it. Visitors scan an existing sign and unlock an AR experience anchored to the exact location, revealing sustainability stories. Now the building tells its own story. You pass a stand of native plants, or a quiet mechanical room, and the carbon work running underneath becomes something you can see, follow, and feel part of — hidden in plain sight, until it isn't.
