The Roca Barcelona Gallery opened in September 2009, concluding a project the world's leading bathroom brand begun two years earlier. The gallery occupies 2,400 square metres, in a three-storey building designed and built by Carlos Ferrater’s Office of Architecture in Barcelona - OAB. Intended as a corporate showroom for the company to present its products, history and brand values, both the design and contents are cutting-edge and hi-tech in concept. Roca’s advertising agency, Tiempo BBDO, was responsible from the beginning in defining the contents of the space and bringing them to life.
To develop the creative concepts and contents for the gallery, Tiempo BBDO called in boolab and proposed working on the challenge collaboratively. boolab spent four months developing all the audiovisual content for the Gallery’s interior, including interactive tables, projections, videowalls and installations. To carry out this work, from the creative development of the pieces to implementing the hardware and software needed for the various installations, we put together a team of around forty people from different disciplines and specialisations, headed by director, Paul Freeth. Paul is a multi-disciplinary visual artist from England, whose many achievements include winning the Grand Laus Award in 2008 for his permanent installation piece in Barcelona Sensations Exhibition, created for Hertzog & De Meurons 'Forum' Building. The Roca project marks the beginning of Paul’s creative exploration with boolab.
The ground floor of the Roca Barcelona Gallery immerses the visitor in a world of sensations that highlight the brand’s philosophy, its history and its core values.
FLUXUS is a 55-screen continuous videowall showing a series of twelve 3D pieces using different fluids and materials to conceptually express a metaphor for the spirit of water.
In the centre of the floor, twelve INTERACTIVE TABLES allow visitors to quickly and intuitively find key information about the brand, such as design, sustainability, innovation and research.
RITUALS is an interactive installation that reveals our intimate moments in front of the bathroom mirror. Simulating the glass steaming up, an interactive vapour covers the screen and evaporates when triggered by the visitor’s movements.
MOMENTUMS is an audiovisual creation that takes over the surrounding videowall and the touch-sensitive tables at regular intervals. Dramatising two different states of water (rain and ice), the two pieces surround and take the visitor by surprise.
The upper floor houses a selection of Roca designs, the most avant-garde on the market. Around the showroom, a 70-screen linear videowall (PRODUCTS) shows a series of 3D pieces that display Roca's products from an almost sculptural perspective (a tap, a bath, a sink, etc.), in a subtle, abstract style that highlights the advanced, sophisticated designs.
Also on this floor is an INTERACTIVE CATALOGUE, which uses an innovative, agile and entertaining touchless interface to enable the visitor to browse the catalogue and visualise bathroom spaces.
The opening of the Roca Barcelona Gallery is part of an even more ambitious project, which will see the creation of similar spaces in cities such as Madrid, Lisbon and London during 2010. boolab will also be involved in the creation and implementation of content for these spaces.
This project involved challenges in four different areas for boolab. The first was technological, requiring the production of over 70 minutes of super-high resolution material for multi-screen systems, including 32 minutes of physical 3D simulations. The artistic challenge was to achieve an intimate and futuristic ambience, incorporating the desired aesthetic and environmental values, while keeping the architectural features of the building in mind to ensure a harmonious blend. There was also a R&D challenge, with new software and hardware needing to be developed for the interactive features and management of the various installations. Finally, there was the logistical challenge of managing the work teams in coordination with the company, the advertising agency and the architect’s studio. Having successfully met these challenges, this project represents a major step for boolab in terms of its future positioning and development, demonstrating the production house’s commitment to becoming a key player in the interactive installations and visual experiences sector. To be continued… |
