With the growing need to improve the urban experience for pedestrians, good signage and orientation is vital. Many towns and cities are now adopting unified pedestrian wayfinding systems, which need to be adaptable, clear, concise and highly durable. The modular Campus system from Woodhouse was developed to satisfy the complex signage needs of two recent schemes in Cambridge & London.


The centre of Cambridge is still largely organised on a medieval street plan, with narrow winding streets and alleyways, and many ‘dead ends’, which makes visitor orientation difficult. Following an in-depth analysis of the city’s needs, wayfinding designers Placemarque created an innovative signage system for the city, using a series of ‘map nodes’ and finger posts, which work in a co-ordinated way to get pedestrians from A to B with the minimum of fuss.

The Campus ‘map nodes’ comprise narrow, double-sided monoliths, 2250mm high and 500mm. The Campus system provided an ideal solution to these requirements. The monolith nodes are standard across the range, but can be customised to offer a range of finishes and map and signage combinations. Placemarque’s versions for Cambridge feature a single panel with two maps the immediate city area, within 10 minutes walking distance, plus the wider city context, and a list of marked destination points. In this way the nodes create a series of wayfinding ‘stepping stones’, which help users to create a mental map of the area. The nodes are interspersed with finger posts which reinforce the chosen route.


The physical appearance of the system was crucial – for a historic city like Cambridge, it had to be both contemporary in style, while working in a heritage context. The finger posts and node structure have a bronze, anodised aluminium finish, to match the city’s lighting columns and the bottom section of the node panel has an insert of local Ketton stone, to offer a visual link to the local environment. The map and signage panels are tough, durable vitreous enamel although Woodhouse also offers an internally illuminated glass version to extend their night time visibility. The Cambridge pilot scheme currently comprises two nodes and two finger posts, but the roll out in 2009 will see 15 nodes and 20 finger posts gracing the city’s streets.

Placemarque has also recently designed a new student wayfinding system for the Bloomsbury campus of the University of London – and once again the Woodhouse Campus system was the obvious choice. In London the map nodes have a stainless steel frame, with a granite insert for the bottom panel. As at Cambridge, the signage panels feature two maps, but in the London versions, these are supplemented by a number of slotted destination signs, with arrows – just one of a wide range of options available in the Campus collection.