Poetic Visions on Hydrogen and Nature – Hyundai’s new interactive Showroom

After an extensive renewal, the Hyundai Motorstudio Hanam, Seoul has reopened to the public. flora&faunavisions are the proud designers of this new immersive experience. Like a soothing oasis in the middle of the bustling shopping center Starfield Hanam, the immersive media installation welcomes the visitors and invites them to embark on a poetic, emotional journey to experience the beauty of nature through the eyes of a Hydrogen molecule - evolving from Water into Energy.

We happily took on the challenge to create a smooth customer journey based on storytelling and sympathy with the customers. Exciting enough for the visitors to explore the entire showroom, expand their stay, and come back. FFV focused on providing a holistic, tangible experience with immersive 360° contents and a fully revised interactive customer journey, for the visitors to learn about the 4 elements that shape Hyundai’s fuel cell technology: Sun, Water, Energy and Clean Air.

The beauty of the sun beam in the morning, a play of light and shadow. Slow-motion water drops floating without gravity and bursting to fill up water containers matching the 3D architecture of the space. The energy chapter captures the creation of power in the fuel stack where hydrogen and oxygen meet to create driving power. As the final chapter, air is showing us the beautiful future ahead when de-carbonising is taken seriously.

The extensive LED setup embraces the visitors and the emotional content pulls them in the poetic yet powerful beauty of nature. Artistic interpretations of the 4 different worlds, all site-specifically produced to match every single pixel of this complex mediarchitecture, highlighting the characteristics of the individual elements.
The medially augmented space generates understanding of the NEXO car and its advanced technology, of future sustainable lifestyle and the innovative vision of Hyundai Motor Company.

Adding an interactive and personalizing feature, every visitor is greeted by an interactive hydrogen emoji. More motion-reactive content and audio is triggered by different sensors throughout the space, to pull the visitors further into the centre room and exhibition spaces of the Motorstudio. Adding some gamification for the visiting kids, depending on location and visual theme playfully the video content reacts towards different parameters of the visitors. The triggered content is timeline-based for seamless integration into the content yet standing out enough for a satisfying visitor experience.
Further into the space unexpected questions and fun facts about hydrogen inform in-depth about the complex topic of hydrogen energy.

To visualize the connection of the artistic media content and add an informational layer, the studio developed an interactive media table. Via touch screens and radar the visitors can choose between 5 different chapters: the 4 narratives of the films and 2 additional games' modes.

Through different gestures, they are invited to dive deeper into topics and learn about scientific facts, sustainability in general, the everyday benefits regarding hydrogen energy and further information about the technical aspects and the brand’s vision on a sustainable future.

This highly technical installation and the rising pandemic called for new approaches regarding our internal and external workflow. The design team worked with a mix of Houdini, 360° Cinema 4D setups and After Effects. By using different rendering engines we created an effective environment to produce those perfect illusions in space within the limited time frame. Virtual environments and the Oculus Quest were our tools of choice for internal approvals and remote on-site checks from every angle in the space, during the production phase.

For the highly complex remote get-in, a mix of tools did the job: thanks to email, exchange servers, video live calls and many late nights, we managed to install the 52K resolution media content on a total of 85 hires custom LED screens surrounding the visitor at 270° just in time for the opening. In order to have the flexibility to easily customize and change the fun facts and questions in the interactive tunnel, this content was implemented using a CMS setup.