Empreinte⎪Grand Reims: information markers

Greater Reims

Field of intervention: technical development, manufacture, installation and maintenance

In 2015, the the Greater Reims Urban Community launched a major project to remodel its heritage and tourist signage, in order to organize it by theme to highlight the richness of the agglomeration. The aim is also to make information more accessible to a public of tourists (especially English and German speakers), while offering furniture whose aesthetics will blend harmoniously into the urban space.

Grand Reims opts for a competitive market, launching a design-production competition covering all the pedestrian signage in its territory.
In order to meet the requirements of the consultation, Empreinte is partnering with the e / n / t design agency, which takes care of the design. Empreinte, for its part, ensures the technical development of objects, manufacture, installation and maintenance.

After several months of competition, the project led by e /n/t design and Empreinte was selected.
The urban community focuses initially on the creation of tourist and heritage routes. 50 minutes from Paris by TGV, this is a popular day trip with tourists.

Capital of Champagne, Reims is the city where the kings of France were sacred. Destroyed during the First World War, it was rebuilt in the Art Deco style, which gives the city a unique architectural identity. It is therefore around these axes that the thematic routes have been built:

two "City of Champagne" routes, one of which includes UNESCO World Heritage sites,
a “City of coronations” route
a course "In the footsteps of Art Deco"
a “Contemporary Architecture” course.

For the sake of sustainability and an environmental footprint, this signage is made of enamelled lava, printed in four-color process and enhanced with gold screen printing. The furniture, designed to blend into the landscape, is in engraved and powder-coated aluminum.
A QR code has been integrated into these devices, which provides access to a web application administered by the city. This allows you to discover the heritage in more detail, and in several languages.
In total, 35 tables and a hundred vertical cartels have been installed throughout the territory to create these routes. At the same time, children's trails, symbolized by enamelled lava milestones embedded in the ground, allow a younger audience to discover the heritage in a fun way.

For the second part of the project, around thirty neighborhood totems were deployed, as well as 8 entrance totems. Wider than vertical cartels, they are also double-sided. They highlight the remarkable bridges in the different sectors and allow pedestrians to orient themselves there.

Now, pedestrian directional signage is being installed. It connects the various points of interest, thanks to aluminum staking poles, fitted with adjustable slats. 42 masts and 236 directional slats make up this urban staking device.

Since the implementation of this signage, the tourist office has seen an increase in the demand for leaflets around these thematic routes. The Rémois (Champagne houses, local elected officials, associations) also gave a positive reception to the project, continuing to enrich their participation via the web application in particular.

Contracting party
Greater Reims urban community

Designer
e /n/t design

Technical characteristics
Enamelled lava, printed and silkscreened in gold, engraved and powder-coated aluminum furniture, directional poles in powder-coated aluminum with adjustable slats

Site characteristics
Project deployed on the scale of an inter-municipal territory, urban staking, sites classified as World Heritage by Unesco

Link
Reims tourist office website

Photographs
Julie Beyou / Empreinte