Guise’s Familistère is a complex of buildings built by the manufacturer and utopian socialist Jean-Baptiste André Godin in the mid-19th century. It is considered as one of the first (if not the first) social housing construction at all. The design solutions imagined were used more than 50 years later by architects such as Le Corbusier.
Client: Familistère de Guise
Partner: Atelier WAM
Tactile Studio partnered with the inclusion consultant Mathilde Jolivet Martin of Agence. Accès Libres to develop an overall concept for the accessible design of the Guise’s Familistère.
Together with Mathilde we carried out a comprehensive study of the site’s accessibility chain, from the parking lot to the showroom.
We designed 8 outdoor tactile orientation boards, 4 tactile models (including a tactile façade and a cross-section of the building), 4 tactile games, 30 Braille label plates, 10 text panels, 18 tactile images comprised in a booklet.
We took a great care bringing the tactile signage in line with the very distinctive graphic and design style. We have therefore explored the aspects of false perspective: beveled inscription boards, furniture with sloping edges, “inclined” graphics by shading.
The staff was then trained in a seminar by Mathilde dedicated to the barrier-free cultural mediation. And to complete, the work comprised also a consulting service regarding the barrier-free design of the website.
