As part of the “Sace Design” course led by Martine Anderfuhren and Rob Van Leijsen early 2024, second-year students from the Bachelor in Visual Communication developed the signage system for “Parc des Franchises”.

This mandate was proposed by OCAN (the Cantonal Service for Agriculture and Nature of the State of Geneva) as part of the park’s renovation works. Located near HEAD – Genève campus, the park includes a biotope, urban gardening lots, a beach volleyball court, a paddling pool, a cultural café, a pump track and a playground, among several possible activities. The park welcomes a large variety of users having many different social backgrounds and ages.

During the course, the whole class designed a signage project, beginning with an analysis carried out with the park’s users (photographs, surveys, wishes, circulation patterns, plans), as well as the definition of the different supports and stages of production.

Over the course of a presentation to the OCAN project manager, the City of Geneva departments in charge and the landscape architects responsible for the park’s renovation, the project proposed by students Nina Wandoch, Julie Babey, Sarah Gamito and Mélissa Calame-Longjean was selected.

This choice acknowledged the particular attention paid to the wishes and needs expressed by the park’s users during a participatory process, as well as to the material aspects of the proposal. This user-centered approach made it possible to define the tone and graphic choices of the information displayed into the signage system, as well as their location within the park.

The selected students then continued the prototyping work on the signage elements under the supervision of Linda Forestieri and Martine Anderfuhren, in collaboration with the OCAN project manager, and with the support, resources, and expertise of the head technicians of the material and prototyping pools at HEAD.

The final production of the signage elements was later assigned to the enterprise Bois Innovation, under the supervision of the project coordinators at HEAD.

From the design and preliminary project phases to the final production, this large-scale mandate lasted more than two years. The project will be presented at the opening ceremony of “Parc des Franchises” on Saturday, 27th of June 2026, at 4:00 p.m., in the presence of representatives of the State and the City of Geneva, the OCAN project manager (Tiphaine Bussy), the landscape architects in charge of the park’s renovation, park users and associations, as well as HEAD representatives and the alumnae involved in the project.

Teaching staff : Martine Anderfuhren, Rob van Leijsen

Teaching assistant : Linda Forestieri

Students : Julie Babey, Mélissa Calame-Longjean, Sara Gamito and Nina Wandoch

Project monitoring and coordination : Martine Anderfuhren and Linda Forestieri

Duration of the commission : 2024 – 2026