The Impossible Pictogram is a popular NYU Abu Dhabi design project from Professor Goffredo Puccetti's Wayfinding course: imagine an impossible solution to real design issues and design a plausible non verbal pictogram. My proposal is still visible in the NYUAD Fitness Center. Though the platform has not been fixed, my pictograms continue to perplex gymgoers everyday.
In the NYUAD Fitness Center, the deadlifting platforms sit nearly flush against a privacy wall. On several occasions, weightlifters have lost their balance and smashed through the wall, resulting in severe damage and a temporary shutdown of the platform. The school is clearly willing to spend resources to repair the area, but has never fixed the problem at hand: the placement of the platform itself. In a space that is meant to support strength training, this wall puts an unnecessary expectation on weightlifters to keep the gym safe.
