Kohler at
Salone del mobile
A trade show booth usually displays product. Kohler wanted a room the whole exposition would talk about.
For the 62nd annual Salone del Mobile in Milan, NOVA Light Labs answered with immersive dome projection mapping above the central lounge, a luminous world of water suspended over everyone below.
It worked. Across the run 100,000+ visitors moved through the space, prosecco and espresso in hand, while Kohler closed deals at a scale most trade show floors never see. The art was the draw. The business happened beneath it.
experience
Guests drifted in, looked up, and stayed.
Across the run, visitors settled onto the central lounge and tipped their heads back toward the dome, watching water fall in slow motion overhead. A hush would move through the crowd each time the light shifted.
Around them the room stayed alive, conversations underway, cameras raised toward the ceiling, glasses in hand, while the water above kept the whole space looking up.
art
Custom visuals built on physically accurate fluid simulation.
Convincing water is one of the hardest things to render. NOVA builds physics based fluid simulations for projection mapping, so the drops behave like real water and not like glass spheres wearing a texture.
The result was mesmerizing. Digital water fell in slow motion through the center of the dome, colorful and surreal, as if guests stood inside one of the brand's signature showers.
system
Pixel perfection while hiding the hardware.
Before arriving in Milan, NOVA worked with Studio Kohler to build a full 3D model of the booth, placing all 4 projectors virtually and specifying the exact position, angle, throw, and lensing for each one, with renders showing the mapped dome in place.
On an international project there is no guessing where a projector goes. Every beam was engineered to land clean on the dome and stay concealed inside the architecture, so the water read as pure light with no visible source.
