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The Waterfront, Muscat: Mixed Use Wayfinding

Brief:     Wayfinding Strategy & Design
Client:    S&T, Douglas Wallace Architects
Sector:   Mixed Use – Office & Retail

The Waterfront is a mixed-use retail and office scheme located in an enviable position overlooking the sea and Shatti Beach in Muscat, Oman, comprising:

  • ground and first floor ‘high end’ retail and food & beverage,
  • a further three floors of office space,
  • three levels of underground car parking and
  • external surface parking.


The development will add significantly to the volume and quality of the existing retail/leisure amenity in the area and is set to establish The Waterfront as a go to destination, drawing in visitors from beyond the immediate locale. 

As such, part of the wayfinding strategy involved bringing The Waterfront brand out into the public realm to provide authoritative guidance on the broader offer.

Use of the brand palette – yellow, sky blue and cobalt blue – in the car parks and public realm, reinforce the identity and provide a clear indication that visitors have arrived at The Waterfront. A key challenge was to ensure that retail and office visitors are directed to the correct entrances.  To differentiate between these functions, signs related to the offices feature the sky blue and retail/leisure cobalt. Yellow is used throughout, acting as a thread linking the activities together under the one unifying brand.

Image of the wayfinding within the car park. The lift core walls is painted green with a large B2 white graphic placed midway and towards the bottom. Above this is a coloured rectangle running almost across the width. The left half is light blue with multilingual directional information to the offices dark blue lettering. The right is yellow, with information guidance to the shops.
CGI fingerpost sign at the Waterfront, Muscat
Totem sign design for The Waterfront, Muscat