Variate Labs Interactive Facade

January 2011 – Keywords: Projectors, Touch Screen, Tablet, Mobile, Web

We wanted to do more than just open a new office. We wanted to build a completely new vehicle for educating clients and Los Angeles about the potential of interactivity.

After undergoing an extensive rebrand, we wanted to create a comprehensive approach to educating the public about who we are and what we do.

We designed and developed an interactive facade for our new office to show the world how we think about cross-platform interactivity and experience. The projection and touch system spans multiple platforms and scales, including the web, print media, tablet and mobile devices and architecture. Images and messages are shown to people as they walk or drive by the new system. Visitors can text message the facade to control and manipulate the screen. A complex system allows for messages to be scheduled and controlled remotely.

Once visitors approach the facade, they can directly interact with the content. When they touch the bottom section of the façade, they can view the company website. Through the web interface, they can explore our projects and our process.

The entire facade system is controllable using an iPad and a custom CMS system developed internally.

For us, the facade system lets people interact with our work and the kind of technology we create. In the future, we hope to work with other companies to develop similar systems that help them generate exciting, new opportunities for their businesses.

This project is currently under construction and will continue to evolve.

Interactive Public Facade

The new Variate Labs facade system offers a new way to learn about and experience content in the real world. Variate Labs is currently developing a proprietary facade system that can be integrated into architecture to address both the pedestrian and automotive street experience. We showcase many of our projects at off hours. Pedestrians can stop and explore our projects while people passing by can view the content that is being explored. Pedestrians can literally touch our facade to learn about our work.

Brand Messaging

Over the past months, we have been refining our message. The new facade system has a schedulable system that enables us to show specific messages at targeted timeslots.

Starting a New Dialogue

Anyone can tweet our office @variatelabs to see their messages shown in real-time on our facade. This enables us to hear what people think about our brand and to contact them directly.

Special Event Messaging

At certain times of the year we show special messages. Over the last holiday we thanked our clients and showed seasonal graphics.