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Entertainment

Hotel Lobby Becomes An Immersive Digital Space

Interactive designers Rockwell Group light up a Las Vegas hotel with a digital light show.

When someone mentions Las Vegas, the usual imagery the name conjures is casinos, garish lights, scaled-down versions of global landmarks, Elvis weddings, and Fear and Loathing. But amid all that glitz, glitter and guadiness, interactive architects and designers the Rockwell Group have unveiled a brand new stunning kinetic installation in the lobby of The Cosmopolitan. After having worked on projects as diverse as the entrance to the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale and Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s savage satire Team America: World Police, this project provided an interesting opportunity for the group to flex their luxury design muscle.

Upon entering the hotel looby, you’re confronted with rows of thick, rectangular columns covered from floor to ceiling in digital display screens. The columns stream virtual imagery on all four sides of its displays—raining down light or falling leaves, cascading bubbles floating towards the ceiling, or images of a couple dancing—and the effect of seeing the same image repeated on all those surfaces, as well as reflected on the floor, creates a disorienting, hall of mirrors kind of feeling. At times the columns and fluttering forms are reminiscent of the futuristic cityscape of Los Angeles 2019 in the opening scene of Blade Runner, with it’s dotted lights and looming skyscapers.

Here’s what Rockwell Group have to say about it:

The West Lobby is a kinetic space, centered around 8 giant central columns wrapped with mirrors and LCD screens. Rockwell Group's LAB installed 384 displays on the columns and 26 behind the registration desk to create a platform for a variety of customized immersive digital experiences in the space.

Looks like a new benchmark for hotel lobbies has been set.