ECWall VR Experience
A VR immersive installation made for Emilceramica and shown at SuperStudio during Fuorisalone 2016
Customer:
Emilceramica
Challenge:
Create a virtual Reality environment that allows the viewer to experience the beauty and the flexibility of Emilceramica tiles.
The focus of the experience had to be the new technology of ECWall.
Year:
2016
Technical partner: Replay SpA
In 2016 Oculus Rift and the immersive VR applications were still a rarity.
This project was developed in close collaboration with Emilceramica ECWall Team in Milano and required a few months of development and tuning. The goal was to explain the simplicity and effectiveness of the newly created ECWall system, developed by King & Miranda Design.
The booth at SuperStudio was designed to host three VR stations with the lightest impact on the overall setup. ECWall solutions made the surroundings, while elliptic structures were chosen to limit the movements of the users while immersed in the experience. This forced us to put the PC in a compartment under the feet of the viewer, coping with the heat that at that time the powerful graphics cards and PC generated.
The VR experience was based on a luxury hotel suite designed with many of the beautiful tiles of Emilceramica. A centerpiece, dividing the two environments, was the ECWall, but instead of being just there, it was created with the animation of the building sequence. The process explained in a few simple steps how ECWall could be easily integrated into any environment. It offered transparency, mirroring and lighting “holes” of various shapes and sizes.
All the images were carefully reviewed and many adjustments were made before the final release.
Exploring the Space was the name chosen for this installation and the number of people that were able to experience is was way beyond the most optimistic forecast: the three stations were constantly in use and the booth had during the whole Fuorisalone some people queuing for the experience.
