HOW CAN  A TRAIL WAYFINDING SYSTEM HELP A SMALL COMMUNITY?

 

Batawa, whose core industry was a now-defunct factory for Bata shoes, sought design-based solutions from Carleton University to draw visitors and new residents. Many of the current Batawa residents enjoy the use of the local cross-country trail network, but the trails remain completely unsigned.



A unique signage system would give the town a promotional feature, and bring increased awareness of the scope of the trail network.



In the concept stage, I realized that there lay an exciting possibility of re-imagining signage as something more than just visual. Auditory sensation could be combined with traditional signage to condition a user to be able to successfully hear their way through the trails.

































































 

Bells suited this scheme for many reasons. To a new visitor, they may seem to be an ancient fixture in the hills, adding an element of enigmatic mysticism. Their sound is vibrant and carries over significant distance, and their manufacture is relatively uncomplicated.



Chimed by the wind, bells placed sparsely along each trail so that the sounding radius of each bell under reasonable conditions (15 km/h winds) will overlap with its neighbors. Each trail is assigned a different pitch “signature”, such that intersections will form a chord.





































































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Different bell shapes and thicknesses could make the variety of sounds required, but would be difficult to unify visually and would require different tooling for each trail. Solving both of these problems simultaneously, the bells are all made from a sandcasting of a single master: taking the form of a geodesic dome, where facets of the dome are systematically removed to change the tone. This single, complex master (with multiple inserts) is preferable to over a dozen simple masters.

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Since the pitch of a bell doesn’t intrinsically correspond to a particular trail name or number, this system must be learned. The name or number of the trail is laser-etched into the hanging wind-tag, so that an associative memory can be formed. Additionally, if the bells are cast in bronze, there are a variety of chemical treatments to add a patina in a wide range of colours, so that each is identifiable from a distance.







































































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