As a team of media developers and architects, Centerbrook was asked to design a 10,000 square foot space that would engage and educate technically sophisticated visitors about Nortel's cutting edge digital network products. This needed to welcome a variety of group sizes and respond to a wide range of customer special interests. Most importantly, it needed to dramatize the client's extraordinary technology, which is digital, and thus hard to see.

With a fast-track schedule, Centerbrook worked interactively with Nortel Networks and VisionFactory, Inc. (the Media Designer and Project Developer) in regular meetings and went on site tours to similar facilities together, eventually producing full-scale and virtual mock-ups to test ideas.

The result is an interactive "Smart Environment" that presents Nortel Networks' extensive internet technologies to customers. The site includes flexible demonstration spaces, full motion video, remote database access, screen sharing, videoconferencing, entertainment outlets, interactive distance learning, a round film theater with a disappearing screen, conference rooms, dining, and kitchen facilities.

Organized as a three-dimensional "walk-through" interactive theater, lights and sound effects go up and down in response to the presence of visitors. Space flows, and yet separates into distinct settings with dramatic changes in ambient lighting and acoustics.

Most visitors begin in a reception hall where they receive an electronic swipe card upon registering that allows them personal recognition at each station of the visit and records their interests for future visits to a web site after they have left. They enter a round film theater with a floor-to-ceiling mobile screen. At the end of the introduction film, the film screen slides open to invite visitors to walk into the space they just saw as a video image. Here they enter the "Hub," with five floating interactive touch-screen modules. Sound is focused with sound domes to surprise listeners as they move through the space. Flat screen images become three-dimensional.

The Hub leads into an oval room with seven interactive computers that allow remote web searches. Next are five interactive video booths with full motion video that simulate internet communication of the future. Last, another oval room offers educational entertainment in a Barco Board with 3-D imaging and a group video game to recall solutions experienced.

Spaces and forms throughout the site are novel. Ebonized bent plywood is used consistently to hold monitors, keyboards, and telephones. Acoustic baffles are applied to walls and hung from ceilings in order to limit sound transmission, localizing the distinct experiences offered and adding a technical spirit to the futuristic environment. Theatrical lighting and sound change as visitors travel through spaces. The combination provides a "sensate" environment that responds to the user at every turn and illustrates the digital present and future.

Photography © Peter Aaron/Esto