Knowledge in relief without boundaries
Our tactile tables enable the three-dimensional representation of a landscape, which can be characterized either by mountainous relief or hills or instead of plains, or even marine or lake type.
The panels, placed flat on a stand, feature three-dimensionality and are designed to be intuitive, facilitating spatial orientation and providing an interactive and accessible experience.
The table by its very nature can be explored in its 360-degree reliefs by turning around, while keeping texts and legends a single sense of reading.
Through a combination of models, reliefs, materials, and tactile cues, the visitor can explore the layout and features of the landscape and understand its position in the context, thus facilitating the perception of the environment in a multisensory sense.
A tactile table of a natural or man-made landscape will use reliefs to show the lay of the land, with mountains and hills in more pronounced relief and plains or valleys lower and smoother. Waterways, such as rivers or lakes, will be represented with incised surfaces or undulating textures to evoke the fluidity of water, and the same may be done for the sea. Forests may be identified with rough and dense textures, while deserts or beaches may have a more uniform or dotted finish. There will, of course, be Braille descriptions and tactile symbols to indicate trails, refuges, viewpoints or nature reserves.
Within the tactile model, built-up areas, connecting networks with a focus on bicycle and pedestrian visitor routes and hiking trails may also be highlighted.
A fulfilling and engaging experience
The desire to offer tools that enable as many people as possible to experience a fulfilling e engaging guided and inspired the shape of these tactile tables, adopting original solutions developed through the fruit of our team’s years of work and experience on these issues.
I tactile tables proposed by CITISLAB are presented as an innovative solution in the long-standing search for methods and supports capable of promoting theaccessibility within urban spaces and landscape contexts of particular value and value, offering opportunities for inclusiveness in the paths of visitation.
Tactile landscape tables are for everyone
Our products, in fact, do not specifically target users with special needs but are by their very nature born to address any type of visitor using easily understandable forms and language.
Tactile tables and production methodologies
The reproduction in bas-relief and that in in the round are the most immediate and widely used methods of tactually translating the shape of an object that cannot be directly experienced. These tools enable, not only people with visual impairments, to define the shape of buildings and deepen their knowledge of the space in which they are located. The correct three-dimensional representation to scale offers, in addition, the opportunity to discover the dimensional relationship existing between the space around us and ourselves.
The tactile tables that CITISLAB develops possess all the features dictated by the rules of good execution of typhlological tools that make them effective and universally accessible the sign, such as: correct implementation of reliefs and braille writing, preparation of simplified drawings but with non-superficial content, clarity in the contour lines of the figures, and respect for the proportions of the elements. In addition, the tactile tables we propose comply with current laws and regulations regarding usability of places and overcoming and eliminating the architectural barriers.
In designing our tactile tables the challenge we set ourselves was to study an accessible language capable of rendering, as closely as possible, the landscape reality around us as faithfully as possible. Particularly for this type of tactile tables, it is important to respect the proportions between parts and the correctness of scale reduction of models and maps.
The prototyping of three-dimensional models is always preceded by the preliminary acquisition of technical documentation (drawings, surveys, etc.) essential for digital modeling. During the realization we pay special attention to the design phase, both in terms of the realization of digital models and the choice of materials.
The material with which to make the model will be chosen according to the location of the table (outdoor/indoor) and the characteristics of the object to be reproduced with the aim of obtaining the most faithful reproduction possible also in relation to the tactile experience of the original material. Therefore, the most suitable technologies will be used in relation to the type of material (3D printing, CNC milling, laser cutting, etc.).
The placement of tactile landscape tables
Tactile tables due to their descriptive and introductory nature of a landscape are usually placed inside infopoints or tourist promotion offices as an initial presentation of the place or at points where a landscape can be seen from above. They offer themselves as a valuable knowledge tool, enabling visitors to understand and learn more about the peculiarities of the area before they begin their visit. The implementation of a three-dimensional model can become a useful teaching aid made available to school teachers of all levels in the study of the history of art, architecture and geography of a place.