Imagine Prague

City plan or interactive installation?

A mini Prague SimCity or a five-volume strategy paper? There are many ways to present the city plan for the next decade. We knew we were in for a challenge when the Center for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning asked us to help organize an interactive exhibition. The goal was to entertain visitors while demonstrating the most detailed texts from brochures in a tangible and comprehensive way.

How about a city plan as an interactive game? Something like the legendary SimCity.

What would Prague look like if planning was in the hands of the people?

We created a space for exhibition visitors to play with original animated illustrations of Prague. On a giant twenty-four-metr projection screen, people took control of urban development, transportation, cultural offerings, and even citizen wellbeing.

photo documentation exhibition space
photo documentation exhibition space
photo documentation exhibition space
Tables with colored bricks
Analog controls wooden colored bricks
Designed table with storage space for exhibition installation
Child friendly Interactive exhibition

We wanted to create something accessible to all generations and more original than common interactions with touch screens.

That’s why we combined digital technologies with mechanical ones. Each station had its own analog control. Via motion of the colored cubes at the gaming table or suspension rods you influenced the look of the city and triggered animations on the projection screen. Visitors could literally take planning into their own hands which made the installation creatively haptic. Much easier than reading hundreds of pages of city plans. We also created a graphic bank of stylized pictograms that can be used for data visualisations and graphs. The exhibition contained several levels of information, from the interactive canvas, through the graphics of the exhibition space, to detailed brochures.