New Look for Tour de France
Location: France
Project: Sporting event
Surface : n/a
Date: 1995-2005
Role: Architect/ design with Desgrippes Gobe asso. + Martin Francis
Status: Completed
One of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Tour de France decided to redesign all of its infrastructure. In this ambitious undertaking, we worked to devise the installation that, every day on television screens all over the world, popularize the Tour and make it one of the greatest shows on earth.
Since 1996, Mellett Architects Agency has been engaged by Amaury Sport Organisation to renovate all of the equipment. Every year, a new creation from this futurist family has seen the day: first of all the protocol podium, then the finishing line, the press tribune, the starting line, the launching pad for time trials, and finally the red flame and the identification signage on the route.
All of these elements have been studied for mobility, extensibility, transportability and capable of being set up in record time. A European team has pooled their joint skills arriving at a result that is both effective and aesthetic, a team that includes Desgrippes Gobe Associates, British designer Martin Francis, RFR agency, German pneumatic engineer Udo Rutsche, a Dutch company and a French car-body designer. The best example of success is probably the Pierre Perrève time trials ramp, named after our former colleague who participated in the project. This is a piece of equipment whose design and ergonomics are perfectly in line with the new image of the Tour, avant-gardist, high-tech and aesthetic.
The redesign covered the following objects:
1996
PODIUM
Consisting of a giant convex inflatable unit mounted on a truck base, conceived to celebrate and honor the stage winners of the Tour de France;
1997
FINISHING LINE
This object for the Tour de France consists of a mobile element to house the time judges and their technical equipment. Telescopic arms stretch across the road as supports for sponsor branding.
1998
INDIVIDUAL TIME TRIALS RAMP
Inspired by an open hand pushing a cyclist forward, the “launching pad” is an inflatable structure anchored on a mobile base. The ring symbolizes the “start”.
1999
PRESS TRIBUNE
Accommodating TV and radio journalists, this two-storeyed, high-tech structure can retransmit the stages of the Tour of France all over the world by connecting journalists to their network from every site in France.
2000
STARTING LINE
A new “member” of the “family” for the Tour de France.
2001
RED FLAME
Varying from 5m to 14m in width the structure reaches a height of 9m. This pneumatic element can be installed in twenty minutes so as not to interfere with traffic flow.
2002
SIGNAGE
Various supports for sponsors have been developed.
2003
SIGNING ON PODIUM
A new Signing on Podium is used every day before the start of the world’s greatest sporting event.
2004
CHRONOPOLE
Redesign of our original Finishing Line – Chronopole for a new sponsor.
2005
TEAM TIME TRIALS RAMP
A study for a new starting ramp for the Tour de France.
