BackgroundStory:DiscoveryDock-ImmersiveDiveintothePortofHamburg

What did you aim to achieve with the project?

Have you ever wondered what really happens in the industrial areas of an international port? We discovered that the fascination for these areas is usually very high for many people. However, these areas mostly remain hidden from the public. Our challenge was to make this partly high-tech and complex inner workings tangible, educational, and entertaining for everyone. Thanks to the most innovative technologies, we were able to create an immersive exhibition that differs from anything seen before.

Our client was a traditional publishing house, the DuMont Media Group. The client wanted to create a new type of visitor attraction - a permanent exhibition - in Hamburg as a radically new business model. Our task was to literally develop this from scratch. And that was no easy task. We had to thoroughly research the topic. With numerous partners from business, politics, and society, from scientists and environmentalists to shipping experts. These free interviews, supported by additional research, were the starting point for a coherent experience. An exhibition with various stations and experiences tailored to different types of visitors. From the active participant who is not afraid to dive into a VR gaming experience, to those who prefer to gently observe and interact. All within a 50-minute experience time.

The final installations range from a realistic VR game simulation where you can unload containers from a ship, to a 3D underwater aquarium replica where you can interact with animals of the Elbe. Such as the Chinese mitten crab or the porpoise.

What technical challenges did you encounter and how did you solve them?

We had to deliver seven exhibits within nine months. Each of them customized and equipped with the latest technologies - technologies that often did not work as expected or did not deliver the performance anticipated. With so many visitors attending the exhibition every day, there was no room for error. Bringing the installations to life was a constant process of brainstorming, prototyping, and problem-solving. But that was not all. In parallel, we were also responsible for the design and implementation of the space. From the exhibition CI to the hardware to the final text descriptions. And these had to match the constantly evolving installations. Designing the experience to be conceptually coherent and emotionally appealing was a real challenge: We had to develop a central infrastructure that supports, monitors, and controls the entire experience, allowing hundreds of visitors to go through the experience in a highly choreographed manner. Our solution for this was a so-called hub. This hub is a local server system that enables live communication to all stations including light and audio and automatically triggers all experience events in a predetermined sequence.

What did it mean to you to win an FWA Of The Day for the Discovery Dock?

We always enjoy sharing our projects with the FWA community and receiving feedback. Ultimately, it is of course great to win an FWA OF The Day. The platform has always been a place for great projects, and we greatly appreciate being a part of it.

The following tools were used:

• Unreal
• Unity
• 4k Projection Mapping
• Vive Pro for the VR stations
• Central control hub
• Kinect gesture control / infrared cameras
• Laser Cutting
• Interactive 3D Sound
• Custom LED installations
• Proximity sensors
• Arduino
• 3D Printing

Three hot facts:

We developed the entire exhibition in just nine months. We studied a living mitten crab in a water environment to depict its textures as realistically as possible. The Discovery Dock was inaugurated by Hamburg's Mayor Peter Tschentschner.

Source: The FWA