Interview about Sounds of Welser Interactive Installation, winner of the A' Interactive, Experiential and Immersive Design Installations Award 2023
Welser Profile is a global provider of steel profiles. The company was looking for an interactive brand experience for its visitor center. Over 13 generations Welser Profile grew into a world leader in the industry. Therefore it made perfect sense for Responsive Spaces to build upon the very core of this success story and let the product be the hero. Real client products were used to build a steel organ, which aesthetically hints towards tradition and reacts to every human touch by offering a glimpse of the underlying magic through the creation of mystical soundscapes.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsIf it is possible to use the real products of our clients, we always prefer to do so. Sometimes the creative process is a little bit longer then some other times. Here, we started with a core idea. How can we create a surprising experience around the magic, that lies "behind" the products of our client Welser Profile.
We did soon know, we wanted to create an interactive sound installation. We just needed some rounds of testing of how to accomplish it the best way. Sometimes it is really the best way, to not think too hard about possible problems but just go out there and try stuff. You never know, what might happen on the creative side while doing so
Since we believed that the interaction with the installation should always lead to a good experience, we could not build just "another piano". By rather leaning on soundscapes than very definitive sounds, we ensured that - what ever the users do - it will always sound good.
Technically, no coating would be the most stable approach to create reliable sensors for the interactivity. But since the steel organ was going to be placed on an outside location, we needed alloy coating. So we needed testing on which coating still allows the sensors to work.
The people working at Welser Profile see, feel and know about the spirit behind their products. The are aware of the brand story and its magic. We wanted to create an installation, that allows visitors at the headquarter to experience some of that magic upon the first touch.
The goal was, to stay simple and so be designed in a way, that the installation does not give away its interactivity on first sight. That's why we chose to design something that looks like any other product sculpture.
Not much to talk about here. We just got a couple of representative products of Welser and then tested the heck out of them ;-) In the beginning we were not sure, if it would work at all. We got mixed results from our first setups. But we have plenty of people in our team that love challenges and so we just did not accept the initial failures.
By simply being a fun and surprising experience. That way we could rise awareness to the fact, that there might be more to everything that Welser Profile does than one might see on first sight.
This project was just another proof for us, that if there is a creative way of attaching an industrial product to an engaging experience, happy moments are created. Marketing can be that easy at times.
Every award that is won for a daring project is a praise for everybody involved. The creative team that developed the project as well as the brave client, that allowed that team to be creative.
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