Fais-moi signe ! — Les Mureaux

Pôle Molière is a complex in Les Mureaux, west of Paris, which offers public services – crèche, nursery school, primary school, multi-purpose rooms, restaurant, café, etc. – in a neighbourhood undergoing regeneration.   

The specification provided by 1% Artistique at Pôle Molière called for a signage system to point the way throughout the complex. 

After analysing the situation, we proposed to design a signage system that would work with very little text, as many small children and first-generation immigrants visit the centre. We worked with intuitive construction materials that Les Mureaux residents will claim as their own over time: simple shapes – circles, squares, triangles and diamonds – for each building, along with a specific colour.

The signage is designed to mirror and interact with the architectural forms, rather than as a separate object or fitting that is added. The shapes hug the walls, windows and floor of the complex, adding an artistic composition to the space. In art, this is the universal language of modern utopias. For the children, it symbolises the early learning activities they can take part in at Pôle Molière.

During the acclimatisation and appropriation phase, we focused on the processes by which the residents and future users could make the signage their own. The “Fais-moi signe” [Give me a sign / Let me know] sight vocabulary is an intuitive, modular construction material with which users can create both abstract and figurative shapes. We led introductory workshops during the production phase, in which over 300 people of all ages took part. This process was an active, fun way to help people become acquainted with the signage and make it their own, an approach that helped us avoid conveying a one-sided, institutional message. We then posted the designs in the public workshop, on the fence in the work area, on the surrounding walls and prominent places in the neighbourhood. The goal was to reach out to people who aren’t accustomed to cultural centres and spread the centre’s sight vocabulary.