We worked in collaboration with Studio Red at Rockwell Group and the Studio for Interactive Media to re-imagine the lobby of the Toronto City Center Sheraton Hotel. It was a prototype constructed in 2007, so be on the lookout for North American rollout.

“The park” was chosen as the unifying theme of the space, enveloping the concepts of belonging, comfort, familiarity, and freshness. While keeping some of the traditional Sheraton accents, we designed a whole new experience through design schemes, and new layers of technology. These new media additions to the lobby are all a means to make guests feel like they are an integral part of the space.

There are three large frieze walls in the lobby, which are made with three separate computers and projectors, for which we developed the software and hardware. The friezes hang above the heads of the guests and react to the movement of those who pass below with digital renderings of natural forms like leaves, butterflies, flowers, waves and snow. As the frieze walls respond to the guests, they provide them with a sense of connection to the space through the dynamic environmental experience.

A row of 48 sonar (think bats) sensors detect objects underneath and activate animation in the projection. Spanning across 75 feet, it acts as lighting to the space as well.

Animated buildings, news, and photos stream across 8 monitors for guests near the check-in. Custom software was written to seamlessly and speedily move elements across the monitors.

We pushed the boundary between technology and design again in the “magic mirror,” a little diversion mounted on the wall. A large television and a camera capture the image of the guest standing in front of it, and then use the captured image of the guest and transforms the background and color schemes. This was conceived as a platform for showing many types of reactive mirrors.