design:retail - January 2014 - (Page 22)

innovation 022 Dream Home Come True R EMEMBER THOSE giant "virtual reality" helmets way back when? Throw those old images out of your head and make room for the new look of virtual reality, where all it takes is a pair of 3-D glasses and a projection cube. Enter VIVID Homes by B&Q in Yishan Lu, Shanghai. Aiming to unlock the potential of the rapidly growing Chinese housing market, B&Q brought in Columbus, Ohio-based FITCH to create the concept. The 32,291-sq.-ft. store opened in September 2013, oﬀering customers a multisensory, high-tech home improvement journey. With VIVID "coaches" available along the way JANUARY 2014 DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM for expertise, customers gather ideas online and instore; share their vision via online "mood boards;" consult their Pocket Coach app; and create layouts in-store with life-size blocks and projections. Once ﬁnalized, the customer's coach ﬁts her ideas to her actual space and converts the design into a project plan, including timings and budgets. The journey culminates with a virtual unveiling of the customer's new home in a 4-D "visualizer" projection cube. The technology system, which was created in partnership with U.K.-based virtual reality specialist Virtalis, pulls the design information from the central system to create a virtual mock-up, which is projected on the cube's surface. Wearing 3-D glasses that track their movements and the simulation, customers can touch, pick up and alter their design within the experience, taking in the sights, sounds and even smells of their home before it is built. "The combinations of the physical, human and digital elements create a unique 'experience signature,'" says Darren Watson, creative director for FITCH's Singapore and Beijing studios. "Multiple shopping channels work in concert to achieve two main goals: improving the ease of shopping and making shopping about more than the purchase." Virtual reality just got real. - Lauren Mitchell Photo by PAUL REIFFER http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of design:retail - January 2014

design:retail - January 2014
Contents
Editor’s Note
Show Talk
On Trend
We Love This!
Designer Picks
Innovation
Postcard
Before & After
How’d They Do That?
Mingle
Have You Heard?
The Visual Eye
Searching for Steve Jobs
Inside Bergdorf Goodman
Winning Windows
RadioShack
Amouage
rue21
Products
Backstory

design:retail - January 2014