Just inside the Indiana border along I-70, the Clear Creek Welcome Center reimagines the highway rest stop as a true place of arrival. Conceived as a symbolic front door to the state, the $54 million INDOT project celebrates Indiana’s deep connection to motorsports and the Indianapolis 500, transforming a brief pause along the road into a memorable civic experience rooted in pride, storytelling, and place.

Designed by Indianapolis-based Synthesis Incorporated, the architecture translates speed, motion, and racing heritage into built form. Alternating angled glass planes and exposed metal brackets arranged in decreasing size create a forced perspective that evokes the sensation of an IndyCar racing past at full throttle. Layered materials and graphic cues, including an abstracted checkered-flag motif and color-shifting dichroic glass, extend that narrative, immersing visitors in the sights and emotions of race day.

For RATIO Design, the landscape architecture played an equally critical role in expanding the Welcome Center beyond a building into a destination. 

Plazas, promenades, play areas, and interpretive elements were carefully orchestrated to encourage visitors to linger, explore, and re-engage before returning to the road—an approach that supports both safety and placemaking. “The more time people spend outside the car, the safer and more meaningful the stop becomes,” Sattler notes. “It wakes people up, gets families moving, and turns a utilitarian pause into something experiential.”

ESL Spectrum’s lighting strategy was integral to that expanded vision, focusing on pedestrian comfort, clarity, and identity across the site. Typology ring lights by Landscape Forms were selected as the primary pedestrian fixture, providing both high-performance illumination and a distinctive visual language that reinforces the motorsports theme.

“The Typology ring was an immediate fit,” says Yuting Yau, LC, Lighting Applications & Design at ESL Spectrum. “Its circular geometry and layered light distribution subtly echo ideas of motion and rhythm, while delivering excellent uniformity and coverage.”

From the landscape architect’s perspective, the fixtures quickly evolved from a lighting solution into a defining site element. “As soon as this project started, Typology was the light we wanted to use,” Sattler adds. “It’s automotive, it’s dynamic, and it feels purpose-built for a racing-themed landscape with its connection to BMW Group Designworks. Once the photometrics came in and we saw how the rings would repeat and populate the site, they became much more than background infrastructure—they became part of the identity.”

Because Typology emits light in 360 degrees from multiple luminaires, ESL Spectrum achieved consistent illumination with fewer poles, supporting a clean site layout and minimizing visual clutter. Mounted on slender masts, the fixtures read as sculptural markers by day and luminous beacons by night, clearly guiding visitors through plazas, roundabouts, and pathways.

“One of the biggest departures from typical INDOT projects was lighting continuity,” Sattler explains. “Once vehicles and trucks separate, the public realm is entirely defined by Typology. From the roundabout through the pedestrian areas, it creates a cohesive, designed experience rather than a patchwork of standard highway fixtures.”

Adaptable by design, Typology ring lights offered multiple distribution options and mounting heights, allowing the team to fine-tune performance without custom fabrication—an important consideration for a large, publicly funded project. Yau also cites Landscape Forms’ manufacturing rigor as a key factor in the specification.

At Clear Creek, Typology ring lights do more than illuminate paths, plazas, and parking areas. They act as visual anchors—guiding movement intuitively, reinforcing the site’s narrative, and helping transform a routine roadside stop into a distinctive destination and lasting first impression of Indiana.