Project Case Study
A city-centre lantern festival in Nice, built and installed by our team — what the site allowed, what it did not, and how the route was set.
The brief
Nice commissioned a Chinese lantern festival for a city-centre public space: a walkable route, a mixed audience of residents and tourists, and an installation that had to work within an urban site rather than a park. That last point shaped every decision — access, ground fixing, and height limits were all set by the city before the design started.
The route was planned as a sequence rather than a collection. Visitors enter through a gate piece, move through themed zones, and exit past a feature large enough to be photographed from outside the site.
What the urban site changed
Three constraints drove the engineering. Vehicle access was limited to specific hours, which meant the installation had to be built from sections that a small crew could move by hand. The ground was paved, so nothing could be anchored by digging — every piece was ballasted. And the site shared a boundary with buildings, so heights were set to keep sightlines clear.
Working within those limits is the normal condition for city commissions. The design adapts to the site's rules, not the other way around.
How the route was composed
The route alternated scale deliberately: a gate at the entrance, lower pieces through the middle where visitors walk slowly, and a large feature at the far end as the destination. That rhythm is what keeps a city-centre festival readable at walking pace — large pieces everywhere become visual noise, small pieces everywhere lose the impact.
Lighting was set zone by zone rather than piece by piece, so the palette shifts as visitors move, which is what gives a flat site the feeling of travelling through different places.
Delivery and installation
Sections were built in Zigong, crated for sea freight, and assembled on site by our own crew within the access window the city allowed. Installation on a paved urban site is mostly a sequencing problem: which sections arrive first, where they stage, and how they move to position without crossing the visitor route.
The festival ran as a public attraction for the season and has since informed how we plan European city-centre commissions — the access and ballast constraints on a paved site are now the first questions we ask.
Specification
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Project type | City-centre Chinese lantern festival |
| Location | Nice, France |
| Site | Paved public space, limited vehicle access |
| Route | Gate entrance, themed mid-route zones, large feature at exit |
| Fixing | Ballasted, no ground penetration |
| Scope | Design, manufacture, shipping, on-site installation |
| Lighting | Zone-based palette, shifts along the route |
| Crew | Our own installation team within the city access window |
Related
All project case studies
Delivered installations across Europe and North America.
Lantern festival packages
Route-scale programmes rather than single pieces.
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Send the site plan and the access constraints.
Planning a city-centre festival on a paved site?
Send the site plan, the access window and the ground surface. We will reply with the sectioning and ballast approach.
