Steel City Tradeshow Highlight by Responsive Spaces is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 Silver A' Design Award in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design Competition Category.
SilverInterface· 2020
Steel City Tradeshow Highlight
Client: Primetals Technologies Austria
Silver A' Design Award Winner in Interface Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #89866The Design
About Steel City Tradeshow Highlight
The Steel City is a stylized model depicting the steelworks of the future. It consists of semi-transparent acrylic models placed on a led-wall, which serves as a screen for demonstrating various use-cases by literally making the Steel City glow: when selecting one of the scenarios at the terminals, users trigger animations which visualize the processes and work-flows of the steel plant in a firework of light and color projected through the acrylic models on top. The whole experience is extended by a professional layer of information, accessed at the terminals via a unique haptic interface.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Steel City Tradeshow Highlight is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Steel City Tradeshow Highlight is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Steel City Tradeshow Highlight is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Immersive Trade Show Installations and Interactive Brand Experiences
We transform exhibitions and events into unforgettable experiences through creative technology. Our award-winning installations combine physical design with digital innovation, turning complex stories into engaging interactions that captivate audiences and deliver measurable results.
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Grand Interview
Your innovative integration of over 200 semi-transparent acrylic models with LED technology in Steel City Tradeshow Highlight creates a stunning visual narrative - could you elaborate on how this merger of physical and digital elements evolved during the design process?
From the start, this project was about "explaining very complex topics around operating steel plants". Since we had to try to use digital content to explain everything, we decided to make the steel plant itself the physical part of the installation. All the products and services of our client, that help the operations in and around a steel plant, happen "under the surface". Therefore we literally placed them under the physical model.
The unique haptic interface featuring a magnetized liquid rotary knob in Steel City Tradeshow Highlight represents a fascinating approach to user interaction - what inspired this specific solution and how did it enhance the overall user experience?
We wanted the specialists of our client, that did all the explaining to the visitors of the exhibition to be able to fully focus on the visitors. Therefore we needed an interface, that they could literally operate without looking at it. With this rotary knob, for which we were able to create programmable and changing haptic feedback, we gave them an interface they could operate without looking at it.
How did your team balance the complex technical information requirements of Primetals Technologies with the need for visual simplicity in Steel City Tradeshow Highlight, particularly when designing the 12 interactive scenarios?
Since everything was designed and developed as a real-time visualisation we were able to freely combine different topics simultaneously. This way, the Steel City always showed 4 different scenarios at the same time, optimized for the different perspective of the 4 interactive touchpoints. By doing so, everybody around the installation could always catch a glimpse of the high degree of complexity that comes with operating a steel plant. This presented the perfect foundation for our client to communicate their expertise and know-how in this field.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The operation of the Steel City is bound to a unique rotary knob: While turning, several "steps" can be felt as "real" physical resistance. These are not analog in nature, but instead are generated through a magnetized liquid inside the knob's housing and can be programmed in realtime. The knob is programmed to adapt accordingly to every selected content and therefore enabling the experts from Primetals to focus on their visitors without ever taking their eyes off the presented stories.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Over 200 acrylic 3D-models of a steel plant positioned upon a 6,5 x 4,5 meter led-wall, which is positioned horizontally between 4 interactive terminals. Every terminal utilizes a rotational knob featuring haptical feedback that changes in realtime corresponding to its navigational state. Cubic dimensions of the whole installation: 8m x 5m x 5,5m. The led-wall is raised 60cm from the floor, housing the hardware necessary for operating the installtion beneath.
- Tags
- haptic interface, digital staging, interactive installation, digital enhanced acrylic models
- Production Technology
- Over 200 different semi-transparent acrylic 3D-models were designed and manufactured depicting the model of a modern steel plant and were placed on a 24 sqm led-wall. The interfaces of the terminals around the Steelcity are specifically designed and built for the purpose of a haptic and intuitive user-experience. On top of the installation is a special reflective material, which mirrors the whole visualization of the acrylic models on the led-wall and projects it towards the far corners of the stand, giving everybody an additional perspective.
- Design Challenge
- While our client is highly specialized in the field of steelworks and thus needed to communicate complex technical information to its own clients and partners, we still wanted to maintain a very productive level of minimalism for this installation in order to deliver their messages in a crystal-clear and visually aesthetic manner. Also, for the people operating the terminals and navigating through the different use-cases, we needed a haptic interface that is simple enough, yet incredibly responsive to the user in order for them to fully concentrate on the dialog with their customers.
- Research
- One of the research objectives was to develop an interface which can be programmed in real-time for the haptic rotary knob. We developed an in-house protocol which is able to communicate changes in the haptic structure to the hardware on the fly corresponding to the content on-screen. Another objective was to simplify the immensely complex processes and mechanisms of a steelplant to a stylized level which can be transported onto our model and create a visual language that is at the same time beautiful to watch and informative on a professional level.
- Inspiration
- Our inspiration for this project was to merge the necessity of visualizing extremely complex processes with an easy to use and intuitive haptic interface. The goal was to have an installation that would deliver expert knowledge on point and at the same time act as an visual highlight of the stand while maintaining the structural complexity of its professional use-cases. We wanted to merge a magical experience with a top notch user experience into a tool that serves the expertise of our client and helps them to deliver this expertise effortless to all visitors at the trade show stand.
- Project Duration
- June 2019 in Duesseldorf at METEC 2019
- Operation Flow
- By selecting one of 12 scenarios at 4 terminals users can trigger animated sequences on the led-wall, which visualize the processes and work-flows of a steel plant in a firework of light and color. Steel is processed, data packets buzz through virtual lines, problems and solutions are displayed schematically and in context, always projected through the acrylic models on top. While the Steel City blends all stories perfectly, the terminals offer in-depth details to the individual users.
- Team Members
- Director: Markus Pargfrieder
Spatial Experience Developer: Katharina Mayrhofer
Interface Engineer: Julian Reil
Spatial Experience Designer: Martin Zeplichal - Image Credits
- Photo credits: Responsive Spaces & Philip Kistner Fotografie
Video credits: Responsive Spaces & Eyup Kuş
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