Welcome to “Porte de Valenciennes” — A welcome kit for the new inhabitants

Initially, it was necessary to identify emblematic architectural markers at different scales, micro (such as the detail of a window well or a tangle of bricks) and macro (such as the architecture of a building or the configuration of a thoroughfare) with the goal to gather a collection of graphic forms to use in shaping the project’s visual identity.

The ten cards each combine three shapes from the corpus, creating imaginary architectures that evoke utopian panoramas of the district, blending past and present.

Each verso contains the complete shapes used on the front and tells an anecdote linked to one of them.

The poster/guide map highlights the 24 architectural elements in the corpus that represent the heritage of this district. The front visual of the poster attempts to synthesize these emblems into a meta-architecture.

On the reverse side, a map provides clues to the location of each element without indicating scale, emphasizing the idea that living in the district involves reappropriating it through exploration.

This project also enabled us to explore the production and optimisation of printed documents, taking into account economic imperatives, with the idea of creating different versions that residents could choose from.

By die-cutting the box and arranging the cards inside it, over 20 versions of the case cover are available. The badges, made from print offcuts, offer over 3,000 almost unique instances. Finally, we took advantage of the necessity to clean the silk-screen frames halfway through the printing process to change the colour of the three tote bags, creating 6 different versions.