The Wayfinding community was founded relatively recently, last fall, with the aim of uniting all people who are not indifferent to the problems of city navigation. And although the name of the group literally translates as "find the way", the very concept of urban navigation is much broader. In fact, this is the language in which the city speaks with its residents and guests, and because of how logical and understandable this language is, it directly depends on whether people will be able to get to know the metropolis or remember it as terra incognita. The first public event of Wayfinding was dedicated to this topic, which brought together more than 160 guests. The meeting, organized jointly with the British Higher School of Design, the Union of Moscow Architects, the Strelka Institute, the Signbox company and the Coworking Nagatino, was held in the PechaKucha format, i.e. in the form of short six-minute speeches, which were accompanied by 10-20 slides by each speaker. The blitz format was not chosen by chance: the community sought not only to demonstrate the breadth of the range of the concept of urban navigation, but also to present to the public a number of its members employed in various fields of activity.
Below we publish the reports presented at the event, all presentations can also be viewed here.
Jewish Museum Navigation
Leonid Agron, Executive Director of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center
The process of forming navigation in the Jewish Museum was long and difficult. The navigation system was developed along with the creation of the museum itself, and its structure required serious systematization in order for visitors to be really comfortable navigating the huge exhibition space.
As a result, a large number of media typologies were created, which today can be seen in different parts of the museum. All navigation media are devoid of special expressiveness, they serve as a continuation and background for the building of the Bakhmetyevsky garage, with the architectural power of which it was impossible to compete. The old font Frutiger was chosen as the main one, which has managed to prove itself well over many years of use. In addition, it allows people of various categories - both young and old - to navigate well in space.
The navigation media used the same geometric shapes as in the exterior of the Bakhmetyevsky garage - as a constant repetition and reminder of the original architectural design of Konstantin Melnikov. All these elements are as ergonomic as possible, it is convenient to look at them both from a close distance and from a distance, which makes it possible to reduce their total number. Various non-system media complement the overall picture and are used mainly in places excluded from the system - these can be glass media, portable information panels, landmarks located at separate points of the building.
The main exposition of the museum occupies 5 thousand square meters, which requires a clear orientation program. For the main exhibition hall, an additional navigation system was developed, which indicates the route for the visitors, conceived by the authors of the exhibition.
The museum regularly hosts a large number of events, temporary exhibitions, lectures, and therefore in the future we plan to use multimedia systems to separate streams of people, indicate the necessary direction of movement and promptly receive all additional information that changes quickly and often, for example, using mobile applications which are guided by already existing navigation media.
The corporate identity influences the exterior navigation, which solves the local problem. For example, our entrance used to be located on the other side: the new navigation medium explains that the location of the entrance has changed and clearly informs about this already when viewed from Obraztsova Street.
I want to note that the work on creating the navigation has not been completed yet. For these purposes, in addition to the museum territory, we also want to use the space around the museum - streets and neighboring buildings, so that people can easily orient themselves by our navigation long before approaching the Bakhmetyevsky garage. Now in our work we combine the principles that were laid down by the Ralph Applebaum team in 2011, and we also continue to integrate branding.
Why don't people go to museums?
Katerina Korobkova, ZOLOTOgroup
What is the most beloved and interesting museum in St. Petersburg? We posed such a question to ourselves and first of all studied Internet sources - as if we had never been to St. Petersburg and decided to go there as ordinary tourists. Of course, any tourist will begin his acquaintance with the city's museums from the Hermitage, then look at St. Petersburg from the height of St. Isaac's Cathedral, and then dash off to Peterhof. Knowing this, we interviewed our friends, colleagues and partners to find out which museum they consider the most interesting to visit in St. Petersburg. And among the five most popular museums was the Russian Museum. The official statistics of attendance at St. Petersburg museums also puts the Russian Museum in fifth place.
Last year, the administration of this museum asked us to develop navigation for them. And already in December, together with colleagues from Holland, we went to the northern capital. The city greeted us with a frost of -25 ° C, but we knew that we were going to one of the best Russian museums with its unique collection of avant-garde. I myself have been there more than once, but I did not even suspect that, in addition to the main building, it has six more branches - for example, the Stroganov Palace with its dance room, exactly made according to Rastrelli's sketches and preserved unchanged to our time.
The museum provided us with statistics of attendance - and this is about a million visitors a year, of which most of them are in the main building, the Mikhailovsky Palace. This is the main problem of the Russian Museum. In general, comparing the attendance of our museums with the statistics of world museums, we are all horrified. One of the best and one of the largest museums in Russia with a Russian collection, visited by less than a million people.
For me, as a marketer, the museum's revenue figures were also important. I always say that our task is to satisfy the needs of the client, but for our own benefit. In this case, the customer's benefit is, of course, the number of tickets sold. Therefore, we thought about what audience can still be attracted and who will be willing to pay for tickets. After analyzing the flow of people visiting the Russian Museum, we realized that its main audience is young people and foreign tourists. And here we were directly faced with the urgent need to create a navigation system that would tell young people and foreign tourists about the existence of the Russian Museum itself and its branches. We have proposed a unified graphic communications system that unites all branches. We started with a simple one, explaining to the museum staff what types of navigation exist in general, meaning not only internal, but also external navigation systems. The museum has its own brand. We offered the most obvious graphical solution - to divide all branches into color coding, letting even an existing brand go through the color. Thus, each branch was assigned a separate color.
Any communication medium in a museum must have a field for the brand, an information field that informs about the activities of the museum, and a field that tells about the availability of a complete package of offers and options for the consumer. The map is also a color medium. Each time faced with it, the consumer learns about all the additional opportunities. For the entrance group, a solution is also offered, which immediately gives an understanding to the person that he has not one option, but many. And in the internal navigation of the museum, on each plate, we gradually lead the visitor to the idea that if he comes to the main building, he must certainly visit the branches.
Our task was also to create a deployed external navigation system. A person should receive information about the museum already at the airport or train station, he should immediately come across information about the Russian Museum and all its branches. Therefore, communication programs and advertising are part of the entire system. All this makes the museum accessible, open and understandable for citizens and tourists.
Now the Historical Museum of Moscow has approached us with the same problem, for which we are developing a similar program.
Unfinished project of urban and transport navigation in Perm
Erken Kagarov, art director of the Artemy Lebedev studio
The project of urban and transport navigation in Perm was not completed, but this may be the only project in Russia that deliberately arose and was partially implemented. I would like to talk about the difficulties that may arise during the implementation process.
In Perm, as in any other city, there are city and transport navigation signs. One part of the project is creating your own font. Ilya Ruderman developed it for Perm. This font is an open sans serif, which is optimal for navigation, because open sans and size optimized strokes are best read.
While developing a pedestrian navigation project, we realized that one type of signs cannot be used. In historic buildings with small buildings and narrow streets, the plaques are viewed from a close distance, so there are enough small information panels. And on wide avenues sometimes it is necessary to use huge, up to one and a half meters, navigation media. We have the only completed plaque in Perm, which the residents of the house installed on their own initiative. Unfortunately, the project did not go further.
We also developed transport navigation. Separate graphics were created for the stop pavilions. We have provided signs of the direction of traffic - for example, to the center or to the station. All signs are bilingual. Pictures in pavilions can also partly serve as navigation, because people remember them and subsequently easily recognize them. After that, the Department of Roads and Transport launched our schemes into production and now they are equipped with most of the stops in Perm. We did not just create a scheme from scratch, but combed the existing one, developed general recommendations not only about what the scheme should be, but also how it should be placed in the pavilion, how the whole set of the pavilion with trash cans, information signs and their color solutions.
Among others, there was a question about the color identification of modes of transport. We decided that the color still needs to be used, especially in the diagrams. As a basis, we took the color system historically developed in Perm, where red is the color of buses, blue is the color of trolley buses, etc. However, later, after talking with representatives of the society of the blind, we changed the colors on the diagrams to yellow, since it is very important for visually impaired people to clearly identify the point of perception of information. Then a person from an advertising agency contacted us with a question about the use of advertising on signs placed directly on the transport. Today Gorelektrotransport does not print advertisements, and private companies fill almost everything with advertisements. Therefore, all the plates are different. When developing them, we allocated a special place for advertising media so that private companies could recoup the production of such schemes. We also came up with the idea that at night information panels are highlighted directly from the passenger compartment.
Now it is extremely important to formalize our proposal in the form of a document that would be offered to each carrier, both urban and private. Currently, private carriers can only use our signs on their own initiative, so there is still a lack of uniformity in navigation. But, perhaps, time will pass, and it will be possible to legislatively include it in contracts with carriers.
There was one more idea. We wanted to make an interactive service that anyone could use. Having given a specific address, he would receive a PDF file with specific recommendations for the implementation of a navigation program for a given area or city. Because the largest number of errors occurs not at the design stage, but later, when people try to implement a project, but cannot distinguish one font from another.
How we fight for civilized navigation in Kiev
Igor Sklyarevsky, designer, art director
I undertook to develop a navigation system for Kiev. For some reason, people in Kiev believe that if the flag is designed in yellow-blue colors, then everything else should be yellow-blue, including navigation. That's why we have such weird pictograms that look like a towel holder or alien abduction. There are such incidents when the sign of the direction of motion is translated into English as sign of direction of motion.
In such a situation, I began my work by creating a high-speed transport scheme. By expressway, I mean all that transport that is not in traffic jams - in addition to the metro, these are two high-speed tram lines and the city ring train. For some reason, I was the first who came up with the idea to combine them into one scheme. I showed on the metro map how it communicates with the surface, and marked all interchange hubs in a unified manner, because the fact and the possibility of transplanting are important to a person, and not information about changing the mode of transport. With this scheme, I went to the metro administration and naively thought that if I offered my services for free, they would carry me in my arms, and the scheme would be immediately printed and placed in the carriages. That did not happen. They explained to me that they did not see any problems with the existing metro scheme.
I left the metro with nothing, and in collaboration with other designers (in particular, Yaroslav Belinsky helped to draw pictograms) began to develop a tourist navigation system. It was a draft design that was not preceded by deep research. But I tried to show that one person in a week is able to do more and better than the Research Institute of Ergonomics and Design in two years and tens of millions of hryvnias of budget money. I used the typeface of designer Andriy Shevchenko. After analyzing the color picture of Kiev, identifying the prevailing colors, I chose shades for tourist navigation that made it possible to avoid aggressiveness towards the environment and at the same time abstract from advertising media and successfully compete with them. But when I came to the architecture department to defend my project, I was told that brown and green are a completely unnatural combination. To which I took a flower with a brown trunk and green leaves from the table. Of course, after that I was almost kicked out of management, and the project again remained unfulfilled.
After another setback, I began to design street signs. They, too, were green-brown. The signs that were placed at the corners of the blocks, in addition to basic information, reported on the nearest metro stations and public transport stops. Thus, I tried to combine street and pedestrian navigation with traffic, because the problem with many navigation systems is that the navigation substructures are not aware of each other's existence. I made one such sign with my friends for my own money and decided to hang it on the building. Then it cost me about $ 80. I thought that the nearest housing office would remove the sign in two hours, but it still hangs and looks, frankly, much better and works more efficiently than the official ones.
After that, Yandex, represented by Andrey Karmatsky, approached me with a proposal to create information panels for public transport stops using Yandex maps. I have developed linear circuits similar to those in London. Their convenience is that a person immediately understands where he is, what route and to what stops he can get, where and at what stations he can change trains, and even sees how long the whole road will take. They also contain an alphabetical list, a schedule indicating the cost of travel and phone numbers for feedback. This project was also not accepted. Firstly, I didn’t like the format of the A0 panel - it was too large, that is, leaving no room for advertising, and secondly, the Kiev advertising department did not want to post the Yandex logo for free.
Four failures - this is the result of my activities for the year. But I continue to deal with the navigation of Kiev and at the moment I am developing a new metro scheme, in which I decided to link the metro to the city streets. In Moscow, metro stations are distributed more or less evenly throughout the city. In Kiev, they are very densely located in the center, and the farther from the center, the fewer stations and the greater the distance between them - up to 5-6 km. Therefore, I tied the metro only to the streets of the city center.
Perhaps you are wondering why, after so many failures, I still continue my activity. My answer is: all my work is actively discussed in the facebook community, which today numbers about 2.5 thousand people. These people, like me, are concerned about the lack of intelligible navigation in the city and are closely monitoring all changes in this area and are waiting. For me, this is an incentive to work further.
Numbers and / or letters
Ilya Ruderman, art director of RIA Novosti
I have been thinking and dreaming about a big city navigation project for a long time. In this respect, I am probably a utopian. I can clearly imagine the definition of ideal city navigation as a kind of system for presenting all the necessary information at the right time, in the right place using an intuitive graphical language.
But today I'm not going to tell you exactly about that. I will focus on the individual elements of urban navigation: letters and fonts. What is happening in the world in this respect? In the United States, a wonderful project "ClearviewOne" for highways was created, which was developed for a very long time and now has slowly reached New York and is being implemented there. In Germany, a special typeface for roads was developed by Erik Spiekermann, a DIN typeface that is now ubiquitous in the country. And, despite the fact that it may seem a little unnaturally built to us, the Germans read it perfectly. London uses New Johnston for the transportation system - it's a great font and graphics with a very English flavor. For Amsterdam, the font was designed by Gerard Unger. This is not his most striking project, because few people know about the existence of the Amsterdam metro - it is very small. Nevertheless, a special font and visual communication have been created for it. Another interesting project was carried out in Lisbon. This is a modern grotesque, which we probably would not consider navigational. The Paris Metro uses the Parisine script by Jean François Porchez. In Toronto, the main font of the transportation system is a very strange geometric sans serif.
By telling and showing all this, I bring you to the obvious conclusion - that every self-respecting city that cares about what visual language it speaks with its guests has its own unique font. Talking about city navigation over the past few years, every time I pedal the thought that font production is an extremely time-consuming but important business. And if Moscow nevertheless decided to acquire its own navigation, then it would need to start by developing its own font.
What font might be acceptable for Moscow? In our opinion, it should be fairly neutral, classic, but at the same time modern. All sorts of historical stylizations are inappropriate here. It is desirable that the font be Cyrillic. I also do not exclude the use of modern technologies. By analyzing the current fonts and sans serifs on the market, I have come to the conclusion that none of them are suitable for massive urban use. They are suitable for local application, say, in a shopping center, or in a metro map, but their capabilities are not enough for solving the problems of a modern city. Moscow needs a common unified system of orienting information, supported by, and possibly starting with, the development of its own unique font.
The language of the city and its application
Alexander Starostin, researcher at WhiteCity
The language of the city includes navigation, information media, advertising, etc. We stand for the unification of all information carriers, for the creation of a common approach, a common idea. Man is a social being. If he comes to a party and realizes that no one wants to communicate with him, then, of course, he feels bad and is in a hurry to leave as soon as possible. The same thing happens in Russian cities, arriving in which we feel that we were not expected here and that it is absolutely impossible to understand where to go and what to do. Therefore, a good concept of the language of the city opens up a lot of possibilities for it - it creates new points of attraction, marks tourist routes, etc.
Referring to foreign experience, I want to tell you about Hamburg. In order to encourage people to throw away the trash, the city has come up with various word-based signs on trash cans, such as "Habe schmutzige Fantasien", which means "I have dirty fantasies." The phrases were remembered and became almost the hallmark of the city.
In Copenhagen, it was decided to give part of the road to cyclists. To inform the townspeople about the changes, a large banner with information was installed on the road. In New York City, public transport posters are used to educate passengers about the city's planned transformations, such as the launch of a new bus line and how this will affect the city and transportation in the area. Even specific figures are given - for example, data that travel time will be reduced by 18%.
In Moscow, the experience of communicating between the city and the population is also being introduced, but most often this is of a point nature and occurs spontaneously. There is no well-thought-out concept in this regard in Moscow yet. As a good example, I will cite Gorky Park, which ordered a brand book from Artemy Lebedev and actively promotes the theme of communication between the park and visitors. Everyone who was there could feel like a welcome guest.
How to get started with such a language and how to fill the city with meaning? What image do we choose for a particular area or city? First of all, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research in order to understand for whom the navigation is being created. And I am not only talking about such a division as children, adults and the elderly, I am talking in general about those who live in this area and who are temporarily in it, somehow interacting with it. When solving specific problems, you need to understand by what means you can achieve the best result. It is also necessary to understand at what speed a person will read information. And the difference here is not only between car and pedestrian traffic. Pedestrians also move at different speeds, in some places they stop, and in others they run at cruising speed from the metro to work. A certain style of performance of navigation media is already tied to this basic data obtained in the course of the study. When all the elements come together, residents will be able to feel the image of the city and understand what language it speaks to them.
Another important point is working with people. In our research, we used many different sociological tools, such as mind maps, observations, questionnaires, and so on. It is necessary to work with the city in order to understand where to get ideas from, which dominants to use and which path of development to choose.
Marfino navigation experience
Ilya Mukosey, architect of PlanAR company
I will try to tell you about what happens when an architect starts to develop navigation systems. When we were engaged in a landscape design project for the Marfino quarter, an ordinary panel microdistrict, the client asked us to also develop a navigation system, which was new to us. There was very little time for the project, but the customer's request was justified. The fact is that seventeen practically identical panel houses are built in Marfino, grouped into six identical courtyards and, moreover, there is a very confusing traffic pattern. We got all this for granted, and it was extremely necessary to find a solution so that people could somehow use the area. Another problem that had to be solved was the numbering of houses located along four different streets and each having separate buildings in addition.
The idea that immediately came to our mind was the quarterly distribution of some of the given symbols - something that you will definitely not find in any one in a Moscow courtyard. We chose exotic animals. After a long casting, six animals were selected, which later turned into bright symbols - both flat and three-dimensional, each marked with its own color.
When approaching or approaching Marfino, the first thing any visitor sees is a three-meter-high poster, which shows a simplified diagram of the area, and each block defines the animal chosen for it. And if, for example, you need to get to some house on Botanicheskaya Street, then you should look for an elephant. The silhouette of an elephant in the direction of travel can be found on the asphalt, on special road signs, and then on the back ends of buildings, where a table of the entire block with house numbers is located a floor high. Inside the courtyard, the symbol itself is installed - a large pink elephant, which is clearly visible from any point of the courtyard space. The numbers of the entrances and apartments are indicated on rather large billboards above the entrance to the house. In Moscow, it is rare to find courtyards where the numbers of houses and entrances are so good and so visible from afar. In the same way, you can search for a giraffe, camel or antelope.
In addition to symbols, we have developed several more navigation signs. For example, there are special markings for a long cycle path, and places where it approaches to highways are highlighted with wider shading. We also had a follower, the customer's architect, who developed alternative road signs for Marfino. Without them, it is almost impossible to orientate in the area, most of the streets there are one-way, and at the time of the project implementation, a traffic police decree was issued prohibiting the installation of road signs in the courtyards.
Still, we are not designers of navigation systems, but architects. For us, navigation has become an integral part of the image of this territory, and, apparently, people are satisfied with the identity that we have created for them. Now, instead of a simple panel block, they live with a camel or an elephant, keep the car under the giraffe, and make appointments near the kangaroo. Many residents say they use this system when they invite guests, order goods at home, or advertise. In general, the system works, and also makes the life of the people who live there a little more fun.
Navigation systems in the architectural environment
Marina Silkina, teacher of the Moscow Architectural Institute
I would like to draw attention to the problems of the architectural environment. Unfortunately, the navigation system is often designed as an object of graphic design, environmental aspects are almost not taken into account in it, although the very need for navigation is formed by the structure of the environment - urban planning, the structure of multifunctional complexes, complex interiors, etc. There are very few navigation elements designed as an object of graphic or object design, taking into account environmental characteristics. They appear extremely rarely, pointwise, and are completely absent in city navigation. For some reason, we believe that, for example, navigation equipment should be made in a historical style and block the entire sidewalk. Of course, it is important to take into account the historical context, but the environmental and functional context are no less important.
It is necessary to consider how orientation systems affect the urban environment, keeping in mind that the navigation system can both enrich the environment and introduce some chaos. You need to very carefully monitor their interaction. We often forget that a person is the measure of all things, we forget about ergonomic features and the needs of the user, his emotional state when interacting with navigation and the environment. We forget that the environment must be comfortable, accessible, aesthetically pleasing and intended for all user groups. Conventionally, we are used to calling such an environment barrier-free, but it would be more accurate to say conflict-free.
The goal of navigation is to form a path, not just a collection of scattered plates. In a medieval city, there has always been a central square dominated by a cathedral, and this made it easy to navigate. The modern city is virtually devoid of environmental landmarks; it needs navigation as a mediator of human interaction with the environment. Without navigation, the perception of the environment becomes almost impossible, and the city turns into an inaccessible labyrinth.
Service design and navigation problems
Karina Ivleva, Signbox company
The Signbox company, organized by alumni of the British School, preaches design thinking, with the help of which, in our opinion, it is necessary to design navigation in the city.
The problems that we first highlight are insufficient and incorrect informational content of orientation systems, oversaturation of advertising signs, lack of a unified urban system. Multiple layering of signs, leaflets, advertisements, billboards and other things introduces complete confusion, a person cannot navigate and find the information he needs. We solved a similar problem in Tsaritsyno Park, where we tried to bring all the numerous information into a single system and present it in a single style. I think we have succeeded, and at present this system is already being implemented in the park.
In our work, we very often speak directly to people. Neither the park administration, nor its marketing research will provide the information that a user, a person who daily uses a particular service, can give. Our main task is to help people, to create a convenient and comfortable environment for them. When designing, we identify the gap map, which is drawn up directly along the route of the client. We also take an anthropocentric approach, trying to get into a person's head and understand their needs. This is what determines the construction of navigation. Before designing something, you need to understand what it will lead to and why it is needed. It is important, for example, to decide whether to change people's behavior and habits? Do you need to keep the existing routes or propose alternative ones? Graphic design does not always solve the client's needs. We must think about all groups of the population - those who are running and those who are standing still, those who want to rest and those who want to eat. Our motto is "Human first!" Navigation should be made for people. I really hope that all the experts in our community understand this and are doing their job to improve the world in which we live.
Guerrilla navigation
Anton Make, Partizaning movement
Today we have listened to many experts who design from above. And Partizaning is such an association of “urban punks” who defend the rights of ordinary townspeople from below. We do not agree on anything, but our main message is - do it yourself! We make it so that it is convenient for us - for example, it is convenient to ride bicycles in a city that is completely unsuitable for this.
For me, it all started with the creation of a cycling map of the city. After that, the idea arose of cycling routes, which we began to mark with stencils right on the asphalt. We have developed a whole navigation system with our own pointers and various slogans, which were first written in English and then in Russian. We have been engaged in such useful hooliganism for the past few years. Cycle paths are one of the main directions to which we constantly return. Sometimes our activity expands to some political messages, such as the action on Red Square. Then, on the one hand, we decided to note the fact that you cannot ride bicycles on Red Square, and on the other hand, in connection with the upcoming presidential elections, we laughed at Putin and Medvedev, who were to swap places soon.
Also, together with The Village, we developed a map, in the creation of which everyone could participate. In online mode, it was possible to mark on the map those places where bicycle parking is already located, and where they are most needed. As a result, we placed bike parking in the areas that received the most votes. And this is a real achievement of our partisan movement. Likewise, we set up an offline map creation process in which we tried to involve as many people as possible - this is called participatory mapping.
Then we developed our own guerrilla metro scheme, in which we prescribed rules and recommendations for its users, addressed not only to passengers, but also to officials. For example, according to our map, it is forbidden to advertise cars in the metro, make bad navigation and steal budget money, but it is strongly recommended that metro users change to other types of transport, give information, and also walk and ride more bicycles.
There were also larger projects covering the entire city. Having decided not to stop there, we developed our own alternative general plan of the city, collected many interesting ideas and even began to implement them. In those places where it was necessary, we drew pedestrian crossings. Trying to emphasize and make fun of the randomness of parking in our city, we have designated the most absurd parking spots. These are point solutions, but they can change the situation in a specific place. For example, instead of our illegal pedestrian crossing, an official one may finally appear.
Our main and most powerful idea is to work together with people, to involve them and to reflect their opinions. So, in one of our projects, we communicated with the population through special mailboxes, which were installed in 15 places in the city. People sent in their research and suggestions for placing pedestrian crossings on the map.
City and transport navigation. Intersection points
Daniil Malkin, designer, Brand-ts
I would like to use a private example - tram route number 27 - to talk about how transport, urban and tourist navigation intersect. The route I have chosen, connecting Dmitrovskoe and Leningradskoe shosse, is interesting both from a tourist and a historical point of view - it was the first steam tram line in Moscow, it is about 120 years old.
There are many visitors in Moscow, who, like most of the townspeople, know very little about the city in which they live. In this sense, a tram could be a good source of information. On the route under consideration, you can find very interesting objects - the studio of the sculptor Vuchetich, the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, the oldest stop pavilion in Moscow, etc. In addition, there are many green areas, reservoirs, parks and sports facilities. A huge territory is occupied by the Timiryazevsky forest, which, by the way, uses its own local navigation. However, she is not tied to the city. The same can be said for the local navigation of the campus, which includes more than 15 buildings.
Also on the tram route there is a docking hub and an intersection with transport systems - electric train and metro. But all this exists separately from each other. The tram is not connected in any way with other city systems. When a person leaves the Dmitrovskaya metro station, it becomes a big problem to find a tram that actually passes in the immediate vicinity of the station lobby. And so everywhere.
In the tram itself, there is also very limited information - a linear route map with the names of stops and, at best, a tram movement scheme, which is also not geographically tied. All these meager data are also located, as a rule, in the most inconvenient and inaccessible place for passengers, near the driver's cabin. But there are not so many important objects on the line, and it would be quite possible to indicate them on the diagram, as well as transport hubs and green areas. Several layers of information could be presented in a tram. And they should be united by a common city navigation, a single system in the format of a city.
There is a tourist tram in every self-respecting city. It can only perform tourist functions, or it can be combined with the city route. There are a lot of examples of this, and there is someone to learn from. Tram # 27 has the potential to make people friends with the city and make the road more interesting.
Town. Transport. Orientation
Alexey Shtof, BTS
The city speaks to us in the language of orientation. And as in any language, it has its own alphabet, its own signs. Our city also speaks to us. Using a Moscow bus as an example, you can see various ways of delivering information - a road sign, timetable, route information, route number, etc. An alternative example is the London bus. Despite the fact that buses belong to different companies, they have a common feature - color.
The main tools that we can use in our work are symbols, pictograms, color coding and mixed solutions. Symbols are the most effective tool for giving an object certain characteristics in order to highlight it in the environment. A good example is the U-Bahn and S-Bahn in Berlin. The color serves to further emphasize the object, in this case, the transport infrastructure. Color can be both a differentiator and an integrator, i.e. can combine and separate, clearly indicating the difference.
As an example, I will show how this universal language is implemented in three cities that are approximately equal in scale to Moscow - Paris, Berlin and London. The universal language of Paris, as the most pure, designer, refined system, contains unified signs with a single coding color that unites all transport, and end-to-end navigation. Berlin uses a more conservative system. There, the system of signs that had developed over the years was only partially supplemented with new elements and symbols. But, despite some fragmentation, the entire transport system in Germany is united by a common color scheme, as well as uniform stopping pavilions. The universal language of London is interesting in that the traditional sign of the London Underground has been turned into a symbol common to the entire city system. All transport in London is coded with this sign. Differentiation goes by color - each type of transport has its own color.
And here the question logically arises: what universal language can Moscow have? It is important to understand how and in what direction you need to move. Now there is no movement at all, no design proposals, no urban initiatives, no public inquiries. Nevertheless, a universal language for the city is extremely important. And here you can follow the path of Paris, and, like real revolutionaries, break everything and create a new one from scratch - in a designer way, beautifully and correctly. It is possible, as in Berlin, to take and modify what is already there, without resorting to revolutionary changes, and spice it up with new ideas. Alternatively, you can use a compromise option like in London, and, remaining in the existing system, transform it and adapt it to the needs of a modern city. In any case, the solution for the Moscow transport system must be its own; it cannot be broadcast from another city. The development of this universal language is one of the primary tasks in matters of Moscow navigation. And this is a huge front of work, which is high time to start.
Tourists and navigation
Irina Trypapina, WowLocal project
I want to dwell in more detail on the issues of tourist navigation and the human factor. We all know that in Moscow there are a lot of interesting and important places, there are so many of them that even Muscovites themselves do not know about the existence of most of them. This is largely due to problems with navigation and with informing citizens and tourists.
We conducted a survey among foreign tourists, and among the main problems that can be encountered in Moscow, they invariably name traffic jams, high prices and lack of navigation. There are problems with public transport - it is extremely difficult to understand what system buses, trams and metro use, and in most of the transport there is no translation of information carriers into English. The tourist is met everywhere with inscriptions in Russian. A subway map translated into English is clearly not enough here.
In other countries, there are various ways to solve the problems of orienting tourists in the city. For example, there are external landmarks, like the statue of Columbus in Barcelona, which can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. There are modern technologies and mobile applications that are actively used in the United States. Finally, there are volunteer initiatives.
Many people simply cannot perceive the signs, cannot navigate by maps, and cannot read navigation pointers. Such people, as a rule, are looking for live contact, asking for directions from the local population. A special movement of volunteers has been created in London, who are always ready to help a lost tourist. In the States, a wonderful company called Just ask the local was practiced, aimed at ensuring that people were not afraid to ask for directions. In our country, the situation is the opposite, in our country people are afraid to respond to tourists, so in Moscow it would be better to hold a campaign “Just answer on the tourists”.
How to deal with this problem? It is clear that it is necessary to create information centers, install stands and signs translated into English, provide tourists with detailed maps of the city in English. But, besides, we really need the ideology of a friendly city.
The WowLocal project brings people together according to several criteria - knowledge of the city, proficiency in English and friendliness. We decided that the volunteers of our movement should have some kind of identification - a T-shirt or a bag with the words “ask me I'm local”. Seeing such a person on the street, a tourist can always turn to him for help.
Our mission is to make the city better, to make it more friendly, so that the townspeople know their city and can tell about it. It is also a chance to practice the language, feel that you belong to a society of active citizens and make your personal contribution to the development of the city in which you live. Today our movement already numbers about a thousand people, despite the fact that the project started a little more than six months ago. We regularly hold various events, we have our own free English language school, orienteering games and photo exhibitions are held. Now we are working on creating a tourist map, which would indicate not only the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral, but a maximum of interesting places for tourists.
Shopping mall navigation and blind spots in urban space
Petr Solokhin, Solo Design Studio
A shopping center is a kind of mini-city, where escalators are transport, a food court is a cafe, galleries are streets. Interaction with the shopping center is carried out through the structure of trade and entertainment. And here, as well as in the city, a system of signs is used when a visitor, before entering a building, knows how he will behave there. I have highlighted some anchor points that help navigate the mall. They are clear to everyone, universal and familiar, and therefore make it possible to navigate even in an unfamiliar space.
As a rule, movement in the shopping center is not straight, the route has a zigzag shape. Often this is already determined by the architecture of the building. For the convenience of the visitor, in those places where he needs to make a decision in which direction to move on, signs should be installed. Navigation should be simple and straightforward. A shopping center is where a person is forced to use navigation. In the city, he can walk the beaten path for years and easily navigate. In a shopping center, he has to read a card, use pointers.
One of the main problems in shopping malls is dead zones, where people often do not reach. This is one of the main reasons for the development of indoor navigation. There are the same dead zones in the city - it is difficult to get there, the infrastructure is not developed and there are no city activities. Of course, this affects the profitability of the shopping centers located in these zones, tenants usually do not stay there.
One of the key points is the design of navigation structures, which allows the user to identify information in advance and not be confused with an advertising structure. There are also alternative forms of navigation, but they are completely undeveloped in our country. They mainly work in local areas. For example, I grew up in Strogino, there is a large beach there. At some point, a tank was placed on the beach, which is now not only a landmark, but also a meeting place.
