Background: Just off Union Square, the 450 Sutter Building is San Francisco’s premiere medical/dental and professional office suite building. This beautiful and elegant 26-story high-rise, an Art-Deco masterpiece, was designed by world famous San Francisco architect Timothy Pflueger. The office identification signs were not ADA compliant.

The Challenge: AccuBraille was contacted by the property management company to come up with a solution to bring the office signage in compliance with the recently updated ADA code.  The existing room I.D.’s were painted on the inset glass on the doors to each suite.   The desire was to have these rooms I.D.’s be as unobtrusive as possible.  A bigger challenge was to have the signs blend into the recently painted walls creating as little disturbance to the beautiful old-world décor as possible.  

The Prototypes: AccuBraille created two prototypes for the client.  Both were made from 1/8” clear acrylic material.  Both were identical except one was front painted and one was back painted.  The client decided to go with the back painted version.  This made sense because the back painted version offered lower maintenance and a more “defused” lookand truly blended in with the walls color.

The Solution: Using the AccuBraille thermoformed product with a sub surface paint that matched the wall color, we were able to produce a sign that blended into the décor, while at the same time provided full compliance for sign impaired visitors.  The signs are ADA complaint and will stand up over time at a reasonable cost.

The Final Product:  The final product for the client is a 2 ½” X 3” back-painted plaque with beveled edges.  The raised text is 5/8” high with the correct kerning to be ADA compliant & tipped black.  The Braille is grade II California Braille.  If you look closely you will the Braille is rounded and everything about the Braille is ADA compliant.  The raised text and Braille are thermo-formed and cannot be picked off or apart.