GPS and Google Earth have immersed everywhere in our lives.

Those technologies have us made forget about the feeling of geographic position. We have learned to get around in every place on earth, drawn lines we ought to follow. Do we need a gadget to find our way around a city? Do we have to know where the north is, do we have to follow a traced path to get from one place to another?

Imagine being free of this technology and having another way of orienting ourselves.

Some time ago people had to find their ways orientating themselves on stars, mountains, church towers, lighthouses... Those signs let them to raise their eyes and look at the world.

In Paris you would notice that the major landmarks are converging streets. Points which are also generating the street network.

For this new orientation system, it was essential to use some of this points. The more simple the system is, the more intuitive it gets. So we chose 3 places: maréchal Juin, place de la nation and porte de Versailles. They had to become significant and visible in all of Paris' streets.

To end with the metaphor of stars, one solution: light.

Context: ESA Workshop with Felice Varini
Teamwork: Lorraine Schaeffer, Amélie Lahutte, Géraldine Saint Gealme, Héloïse Cousin.