How A Peruvian Cement Brand Turned Sidewalks Into A Navigation System For The Blind
Cemento Sol’s award-winning Sightwalks project in Peru transformed ordinary sidewalks into a tactile navigation system for blind pedestrians, won top honors at Cannes Lions, and continued gaining international recognition in 2025.
Blind-friendly urban design is usually discussed in terms of ramps, crossings, and standard tactile paving. What made Peru’s Sightwalks project stand out was its attempt to push that idea further. Instead of treating sidewalks as passive infrastructure, the project turned them into a simple information system that could help blind and visually impaired pedestrians identify nearby services through touch.
That idea was powerful enough to win the Design Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2024, and the project did not disappear after festival season. It continued to receive recognition in 2025, strengthening its reputation as one of the most practical and socially meaningful design ideas to come out of the advertising world in recent years.
A Sidewalk System That Does More Than Guide
The project was created by Cemento Sol, in partnership with the Municipality of Miraflores and Circus Grey Peru. Its core idea was straightforward but highly effective: traditional tactile paving helps blind pedestrians stay oriented, but it does not usually tell them what is nearby. Sightwalks added that missing layer by introducing tactile tiles that communicate information about surrounding businesses and services through patterns that can be read with a cane.
In practical terms, this meant the sidewalk could do more than point someone forward. It could also help identify whether a person was approaching a pharmacy, a bank, a restaurant, or another useful location. That shift from simple direction to meaningful information is what made the project feel less like a campaign and more like a real urban accessibility tool.
Why The Project Drew So Much Attention
Cannes Lions recognized Sightwalks with the Design Grand Prix in 2024, one of the festival’s most prestigious honors. The award mattered because it showed that the judges were not only rewarding visual creativity or branding, but also a design solution embedded directly into public space.
What made the project especially striking was that it came from a cement brand. Cement is not usually associated with emotional storytelling or cutting-edge design. Yet Sightwalks showed how a company tied to construction materials could position itself inside a real public problem and help create a low-tech, scalable, and highly visible accessibility solution.
Built With The Community, Not Just For It
One of the strongest parts of the story is that the system was developed with input from organizations representing blind people in Peru. That matters because too many accessibility projects are designed from the outside, with limited involvement from the people who actually need them. Sightwalks gained credibility by being shaped alongside the community it was meant to serve.
This is also one reason the project resonated internationally. It was not simply a symbolic awareness campaign. It tried to solve a day-to-day mobility problem in a tactile, usable, street-level way.
The Scale Of The Implementation
According to official project information, Sightwalks has covered more than 75,000 square meters in Miraflores and has been presented as a system that could potentially benefit more than 500,000 blind people. Those numbers helped reinforce the idea that this was not a one-off installation for awards juries, but an actual public-space intervention with broader replication potential.
Another important detail is that the project was presented as open for replication, making it easier for other cities and institutions to adopt a similar model. That changes the meaning of the work entirely. It stops being just a branded activation and starts looking like a transferable urban design framework.
The Story Did Not End In 2024
Sightwalks kept building momentum after its Cannes Lions breakthrough. Cemento Sol’s official updates say the project also won further recognition at Cannes Lions 2025, including a Gold Lion in Health & Wellness and a Bronze Lion in Creative Effectiveness, bringing its total Cannes Lions count to ten across two years. It was also highlighted by Fast Company’s 2025 World Changing Ideas Awards.
That follow-up recognition matters because it suggests the project was not only admired for its concept, but also valued for its continued relevance and real-world impact. The best ideas in design do not just look intelligent. They keep proving useful after the applause ends.
Why Sightwalks Still Feels Relevant Today
There is a reason this story still feels current. Cities everywhere talk about inclusion, accessibility, and human-centered design, but many solutions remain expensive, digital-first, or difficult to scale. Sightwalks stood out because it used a familiar urban material and gave it a smarter role. It did not ask people to download an app, buy a device, or learn a complicated system. It put information directly into the pavement.
That is what gives the project lasting value. It is a reminder that some of the most effective innovations are not flashy. They are simple, physical, and woven into everyday life so naturally that they begin to feel obvious once you see them.