AFTES is not a general public trade show: three days, a thousand delegates, and an audience that knows the trade better than anyone. Visitors don't need anyone to explain what a tunnel boring machine is—they come to see how it was used, on which job site, and with what results. Hence the chosen approach: not showcasing a company, but showcasing engineering structures. Iconic projects take up the wall, teams anchor the space, and everything else is designed so that conversations spark while standing, in under thirty seconds.

Above it all, a double-sided suspended sign supported by a technical truss: the logo can be read from one end of the aisle to the other, long before distinguishing the stand. Below, the space unfolds in three stages. The welcome desk at the corner entrance, open to the main aisle traffic, complete with its technical literature display. Along the partition wall, the project line—large backlit formats, structural cross-sections, key figures—each titled above its visual. And at the back, the semi-enclosed meeting space, insulated from noise, where the meetings that truly matter during a congress of this nature take place.

The rest lies in the materials. Raw concrete, metal, light wood, and an under-base light strip that makes the furniture float above the floor: the vocabulary of the construction site, but executed with showroom-level finishing. Nothing ostentatious—at a technical congress, sobriety is what commands authority.

The constraint at Lille Grand Palais is time. Short assembly windows, regulated heights, and shared access with all exhibitors. The entire structure was therefore designed to be demountable, pre-assembled in the workshop, and engineered to be reused at the industry's upcoming events.

Design, workshop fabrication, transport to Lille, assembly and dismantling on site at Grand Palais: a single point of contact across the entire chain, in France as well as internationally, just like for all our Industry & Construction stands.

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