Sineu Graff will supply the furniture for the athletes’ village at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – Le Journal des Entreprises
Street furniture designer Sineu Graff (€14 million turnover, 85 employees), based in Kogenheim (Bas-Rhin), has just won a major contract as part of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games: equipping all of the Athletes’ Village with seating, barriers and protective equipment. An exceptional market in terms of its amount (2 million euros, for around 1,500 objects) but also in terms of its requirements, since the SME has to design innovative and inclusive equipment, suitable for both able-bodied and athletic athletes. to the athletes of the Paralympic Games, without forgetting the future inhabitants of this new district of the Ile-de-France region. The result of 3 years of work.
A powerful trio to design a tailor-made range
“Unlike the usual calls for tenders, this was an open competition, without a predefined framework, which left room for a lot of design work. It was necessary to be able to satisfy different types of users and managers, in particular by discussing with the local authorities to find out what they wanted to keep after the games,” says Vincent Schaller, president of Sineu Graff. The company, which has its own design office, has surrounded itself with a team of experts in their field: a designer (Alexandre Moronnoz), a landscape designer (Clément Willemin, Wald agency) and specialists in the mobility of the visually impaired (Philippe Moreau and Ricardo Leone, Tactile studio). Sineu Graff has thus invested €200,000 in studies and prototyping, to define a complete and fully configurable range of seating furniture, protective equipment (bicycle supports, barriers, etc.), waste bins. It is now preparing to manufacture the latter according to the demand of the developers. “We don’t make anything in advance; very often the details do not reach us until the last moment. To anticipate this race against time, we have already made all the necessary supplies”, explains its manager.
Get out of your comfort zone
In addition to its interest in terms of image, the Olympic contract allowed Sinue Graff to progress in his way of working. “This type of contract allows us to review our ways of thinking and get out of our traditional development plan. It’s good for everyone,” says Vincent Schaller. As with other “flagship” projects – another major program is underway in a Gulf country – the furniture for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will not necessarily have destined to enter the standard catalog of the company. However, it will have enabled it to better integrate the issues of inclusion, which are now becoming more and more important in this market. “We no longer see the objects in the same way as before”, summarizes the entrepreneur.
