Representing a profession and expressing a vocation: to shape the cities of tomorrow, to improve the sustainability of our buildings, to provide solutions to the new needs of society. COAC is the institution that has represented the architecture professionals of Catalonia for decades. A profession that is a reflection of society and therefore faces an evolving
context, especially following the crisis that significantly affected the sector, forcing its professionals and organizations to reinvent themselves.
All this translates into new needs, areas of expertise and profiles that should also be represented by the institution. With this objective top of mind, COAC decided to embark on a process of transformation that would imply a redefinition of its functions, services and positioning and, consequently, a new identity capable of expressing it. The new definition of COAC should reflect the architecture of the 21st century while becoming ultimately flexible and dynamic in order to adapt to the sector’s new horizons and the needs of current and future professionals. From a rigorous immersion process, the Som Arquitectes (We are Architects) positioning emerged. It represents the vocation
of grouping architecture in all its diversity and plurality, and of ratifying the entity as the reference for its professionals, as well as the will to encompass and reinforce the role of the architect in society, inspiring professionals once more and reinforcing their sense of belonging.
The new COAC should be more accessible and open to approach citizens and offer solutions to new challenges and social needs. What’s more, it should be able to raise the social value of the discipline. With this goal, COAC ceased to be an acronym of the name of the institution,
in a gesture that seeks to transcend the traditional role of professional associations to become an actor in society. This new, more human and more empathic institution needed a new identity to capture this change and this way of understanding the architecture of the future. From the O,
a symbolic space is generated upon which to project, a window open to architecture and society, one capable of letting different proposals in. With this O, a living brand is created, which matches the most dynamic personality of the institution, which is transforming – like the profession itself – to adapt the brand to each support, and to structure the graphic
system which represents the different layers of COAC brand architecture,
ordering the different services and organic levels. The versatility of the O is combined with a luminous chromatic palette that permits modulation the tone according to the different applications, to highlight the diversity of the collective. A brand that empowers COAC for new era and establishes the relevance of Architecture and its professionals as the window from which to respond to the society of tomorrow.