New signage for the municipal cemeteries
The signage will be implemented for the first time in Sihlfeld Cemetery from March 2022 and will be used in all municipal cemeteries in Zurich from 2023.
In March 2022, the Sihlfeld Cemetery will receive new signage. The aim is to improve orientation and integration into online map services.
With the knowledge gained from practical use, the signage WILL gradually be used in all municipal cemeteries from 2023.
The city of Zurich operates 19 cemeteries, from the small churchyard in Witikon with a size of 0.2 hectares to the more than 25 hectare cemetery in Sihlfeld.
The urban cemeteries differ not only in their size, but also in their characteristics, which are shaped by the respective location and individual history.
Today grave fields and cemetery infrastructure are very difficult to find and the signage no longer meets today’s requirements.
selection via competition
In 2019, Jimmy Schmid, a signage expert at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB), conducted a study for urban cemetery signage as a competition.
In this way, a uniform signage should be found that can be used for small as well as for medium-sized and large cemeteries.
It should enable better orientation, take general norms into account while preserving the historical values of the individual cemeteries and contribute to the obstacle-free orientation of people with disabilities.
From the four offices preselected in the selection process, the “Design Studio m—d—buero” emerged as the winner with the “Remembrance Landscapes” project.
Easy orientation with less intervention
The reasonable reflection with the location, the clearly legible orientation plans with iconographic elements and the clear information hierarchy were recognized as beneficial, among other aspects.
The development of large and medium-sized cemeteries via main axes and the newly created “cemetery squares” was convincing.
The cemetery squares also create an identity in the larger cemeteries with memorial stories and their names. They thus enable easy orientation with less intervention and integration into common online map services.
However, online orientation directly to the individual grave WILL only be tackled as part of the future replacement of today’s grave management software. It was therefore not the subject of the competition.
First implementation in the Sihlfeld cemetery
The signage, which has been worked out in detail in the meantime, will be implemented for the first time in Sihlfeld Cemetery from March 2022 – work on this will start in February.
The Sihlfeld Cemetery places the highest demands on orientation simply because of its size and the different sub-areas and buildings. With the implementation of the signage, the accessibility of the chapel in the cemetery area “D” via ramps will also be improved.
With the installation in the Sihlfeld cemetery, experience should be gained in 2022 and 2023 as to what works well and which points still need to be adjusted.
Only after these findings WILL the signage be used later in other cemeteries. After installation, the new cemetery spaces and the entrances to the cemetery should also be entered in common online map services.
Experimental test from the smart city innovation loan
In addition, an experimental test from the Smart City Innovation Loan is being planned, in which so-called “beacons” are intended to improve orientation for people with severe visual impairments.
The “beacons” serve as small Bluetooth radio beacons that can be recognized by a mobile phone, for example, and can guide its owner.
The development and installation of the new signage in the Sihlfeld cemetery was planned well in advance.
The fact that the installation was made during this period, like the district council’s decision to limit the opening hours of the cemetery, is coincidental and has nothing to do with this decision.
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