Coca-Cola Beatbox Pavilion

During the London 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, sponsor Coca-Cola presented the "Beatbox" pavilion in the middle of the Olympic Park. The pavilion combined architectural design and sound technology to produce a "communication tool" where guests could walk in and create music. 230 red and white translucent synthetic cushions – 40 of them sound-emitting and touch-sensitive – were developed to make up the interactive facade of the pavilion.

iart's audio and interaction technology was integrated into 40 ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) membranes all over the building and allowed visitors to "play" the pavilion like an instrument, just by touching the cushions. To enable this effect, iart created a structure sensitive to movement and touch, reacting with a series of pre-recorded sounds composed by Mark Ronson. Through sound, vibration and LED light activation, visitors experienced the immediate tonal, tactile and visual feedback. This interactivity of the facade brought the pavilion to life, offering a unique visitors' experience.

iart developed this "musical instrument" from proof of concept to solution in close collaboration with the architects Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt, and the sound designers in just seven months. Around 300,000 people were passing through the pavilion during the Olympics: on average 7000 visitors per day. The project is a perfect example of the symbiosis between architecture and interactive media, successfully contributing to turn a sponsor's idea into a corporate architecture which transports the message by its visual, audible and participatory appearance to a huge audience.