Design Team Procurement for Cork City Wayfinding Scheme

Tender description

The project will support the development and roll out of a new bespoke visitor orientation and Wayfinding scheme unique to Cork celebrating the City’s maritime and built heritage. While primarily focused on visitors, the project will also extend into suburbs for approximately 2km, with the provision of fingerposts highlighting walking and cycling times to the city centre celebrating the links to the city and giving opportunities to examine its built heritage. Cork City lacks on-street orientation tools at key arrival points, with little or no on street mapping and limited directional signage for pedestrians (and cyclists). As a compact city Cork is highly walkable, but this is not evident due to the lack of on-street orientation and wayfinding signage. The city centre’s unique island layout, with river channels to its north and south, makes orientation particularly challenging for visitors, and they are often unaware of all the City has to offer. This project will develop orientation and signage which is unique to Cork and imbued with a distinct sense of place. Visitors will feel welcome, and will find it easy to get around, understand what is available to them within walking distance, or by bicycle or public transport. The incorporation of interpretation, storytelling and animation will enable visitors to understand the City’s maritime character and heritage and understand the sense of place. The project is consistent with Cork City Walking Strategy (2013-2018) which seeks to enhance a culture of walking both within and beyond the city centre. At the heart of this strategy is the vision that Cork City would have a network of high quality street and amenity routes which provide direct connections between places and encourage people to walk more and reduce private car use, especially for short distances. Enhanced provision of mapping, signage and Wayfinding is one of the specific network improvements suggested in the strategy.