Studio Loutsis Builds Timber Wayfinding for Snøhetta's Roosevelt Library

Studio Loutsis has delivered a comprehensive signage, wayfinding and donor recognition system for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. The library, embedded in the Badlands terrain, was designed by Snøhetta with architect of record JLG Architects. Its campus connects three institutions across expansive indoor and outdoor environments.

Studio Loutsis treated graphic wayfinding as an architectural and landscape-driven extension of the campus. The brief covered the full range of scales, from monumental exterior markers down to pedestrian trail placards.

What holds the system together?

A bespoke typeface, engineered with Commercial Type (a type foundry), anchors the identity. It pairs with a custom iconography system that unifies signage across every scale and setting.

Exterior wayfinding uses heavy timber pylons, directional panels, campus maps, and dark metal dimensional lettering. All are engineered to withstand North Dakota's extreme climate while weathering alongside the building envelope.

How do sustainability rules shape the materials?

Fabrication ran under stringent Living Building Challenge parameters (a green building certification requiring non-toxic materials and strict ecological performance). All materials, non-toxic coatings, and mechanical assemblies adhere to those standards.

Indoors, the approach gets more surgical. Signage mounts directly to vertically articulated timber partitions using custom-milled infill blocks. The central lobby's 'Wall of Gratitude' integrates flush donor wood panels into the primary architectural cladding, so recognition naming sits inside the architecture rather than applied on top of it.

The result is a system the designers describe as establishing a subtle dialogue between typography, materiality, and architecture. Indoor directional graphics mount flush against the building's complex timber wall claddings.

What does this change for the campus visitor?

Wayfinding now reads as part of the landscape itself. Freestanding pylons sit naturally within the native Badlands setting. Custom wood trailhead signage combines directional information with custom maps along the winding pedestrian trails. Vehicular signage marks the library's entrance across the expansive landscape. Freestanding, mobile ticketing and check-in signage operates in the main lobby, and identification signage for spaces such as the Microsoft Gallery and the auditorium follows the library's material palette.

Project details:

• Name: Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library
• Signage and wayfinding designer: Studio Loutsis
• Architecture: Snøhetta, with architect of record JLG Architects
• Location: Medora, North Dakota, US
• Typeface: bespoke, engineered with Commercial Type

The commission signals how environmental graphics (signage and wayfinding treated as a design discipline in their own right) are increasingly specified at the earliest stages of major cultural projects. For the Roosevelt library, the signage doesn't decorate the architecture; it is fabricated from the same timber, to the same ecological standards, and is expected to weather at the same pace as the building itself.