Visitor guide system for Waldkirch

A holistic guidance system for the organ city of Waldkirch

It's not just international organ-building enthusiasts who will now find it even easier to find their way around Waldkirch - locals and day-trippers will also benefit from the new visitor guidance system. Since this summer, 9 signposts, 7 steles with comprehensive location information and 18 signposts have been guiding visitors from the railway station and the central car parks along interesting routes to the town's most important tourist destinations.

The large district town of Waldkirch has a lot to offer. Nestled in the Elz Valley in the south-western Black Forest, around 16 kilometres north-east of Freiburg im Breisgau, it is a popular tourist destination and home to numerous small and medium-sized companies. With a population of 21,000, it is the second largest town in the district of Emmendingen. For 200 years, the town's name has stood for outstanding craftsmanship worldwide and it is still an international centre for organ building today. Every three years, organ-building enthusiasts from all over Germany and the world travel to Waldkirch for the International Organ Festival. Those interested in culture can learn all about the history of the town and organ building in the Elz Valley Museum and the town archives. But Waldkirch is more than just music and culture. The nature adventure park offers a varied programme for the whole family, from adventure mini-golf and pedal boating on the Stadtrainsee lake to a visit to the Black Forest Zoo and the treetop walk with Europe's longest tube slide.

Over the last 30 years, many different signage elements for car parks, sights, hotels and restaurants have developed into a confusing forest of signs for pedestrians and motorists. As part of the "Location marketing offensive" of the Waldkirch town marketing department, a catalogue of measures for the future development of the town was drawn up in 2016. The aim of the city development was to present Waldkirch as a city of short distances and to guide visitors to all important tourist destinations in the city centre. In this context, the forest of signs was also to be replaced by a standardised and clear pedestrian and parking guidance system. Above all, the new system should also be able to coordinate the flow of visitors to the major events "Orgelfest 2017" and "Heimattage Baden-Württemberg 2018".

The company MAQNIFY from Emmendingen was commissioned to design and implement the new visitor guidance system. In a first step, the pedestrian sources and most important walking routes in the town were identified. In order to present Waldkirch as a town of short distances and to invite visitors to explore the town on their own, it was important not to rely on a fixed route, but to use various information points and signposts in the town area. In addition to signposting, information pillars were also created at railway stations and car parks to provide arriving visitors with multilingual information about what Waldkirch has to offer.

MAQNIFY was also responsible for realising the design work to align the steles and signs with the town's new corporate design. The stylistically suggested organ pipes in the Waldkirch logo were transferred to the stelae in such a way that they create a recognisable image and thus integrate well into the townscape. All steles are equipped with a city map specially designed for the town of Waldkirch and individual pictograms.

The steles and signs were realised by the company Kurt Ries GmbH from Bruchsal. Thanks to the modular, customisable system, individual elements can be inexpensively replaced at any time if changes are necessary or if damage is caused by vandalism. An anti-graffiti paint additionally protects the steles from graffiti. Subsequent addition of targets in a standardised design is possible without any problems. In the near future, the system is to be extended to the surrounding neighbourhoods and supplemented with a hotel and restaurant signage system. A further advantage becomes apparent during installation. Thanks to the ground sockets, the steles can be erected in just a few minutes. As a result, all the columns were installed within a single day in June 2017. The town of Waldkirch and MAQNIFY are delighted with the implementation. Visitors have responded well to the new system and are very happy to use it to find their way around the town. The project is a complete success and once again confirms how important urban development is.