Physical x Digital

A collection of experiences, installations and products that transcend the boundaries between physical and digital. Curated by Lee Billington.

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AI & Architecture

An Experimental Perspective

Is this the future of space planning?

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Inside Nordstrom’s 7-story flagship NYC store, where digital retail meets physical brick-and-mortar

NEW YORK CITY — I spent a little time across the country earlier this month in New York City and had a chance to check out how some of Seattle’s biggest companies are blending digital innovation with…

Deep integration of digital is changing retail. Here’s a few highlights from the new Nordstrom flagship:

The 7-story store in the heart of the nation’s fashion capital features the Nordstrom norms — top brands; good customer service; food and drink (seven restaurant and bar options!); on-site tailoring; etc.

Technology is sprinkled throughout, such as the augmented reality lipstick finder or the phone charging stations. There is a focus on picking up online orders, which have become a key part of Nordstrom’s growth strategy.

“Opening this flagship has been perhaps the most important milestone in our company’s long history,” Nordstrom co-president Erik Nordstrom said on the company’s third quarter earnings call.

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Refik Anadol: Latent Being | Tech and the Arts | Showcase

If machines could dream, what would it look like? That is one of the questions about artificial intelligence that Turkish artist Refik Anadol explores in a n...

We’re collaborating on a to-be-named project with Refik, and are so impressed with his ability to bring data to life. Watch this piece to learn more about his use of AI to demonstrate the dreams of machines.

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As our lives continue to evolve with advances in technology, the built environment is becoming more integrated into our digital lives.

Very proud of the work we’re doing at Gensler to define technology’s influence on our physical spaces.

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Sea of Me

This 10x50' installation explores the relationship between memory and data, and the dynamic ways that we interact with both. We used short film, augmented reality code technology, projectors, smartphones and tablets to deliver an immersive, innovative, and interactive experience. Participants could watch short films about people's intimate memories by "discovering" tags in the wall of droplets and even have the option to insert their own memories into the installation

Seven years ago, Lisa Kaselak (before we were married) and I first collaborated on what became known as the Sea of Me installation. At the time, she was teaching convergent media at SMU and had tasked her students (and then me and her) to develop an art installation that would bring physical and digital together in a unique way. She was interested in pushing the boundaries of documentary storytelling by exploring the relationship of memory, data and truth. I was digging in to Microsoft's Tag tech and talking to MS about how far we could push it before it broke.

This was my first exploration into the colliding worlds of digital & physical and would become central to my career path. It also launched Beak Labs, a company we started that brought us Microsoft, Mozilla, Spotify, Bose, and Twitter as clients.

Everyday we make decisions, some of which end up completely changing our life course, usually unbeknownst to us at the time. This project was definitely one of those times for us. I'm thankful for the opportunities this created, and discovering what a joy it is to work and create with my partner.

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Rollable 4K OLED TV at CES 2019

LG delivers Innovation for a Better Life at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show.

Flexible screens are going to disrupt how we think about digital in physical spaces. I doubt this specific iteration is going to radically transform anything, though. This strikes me as similar to the Laserdisc—fundamentally the idea that we would have media on digital discs was right, but the final format was different. These will eventually seem like clunky ancestors, much like our notch-filled phones now.

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Spielberg Looks to Grow Virtual Reality Business With Retail Experience

Director Steven Spielberg and studio partners raise $11 million to draw consumers to a VR arcade offering the future of entertainment and shopping

We're not yet close to the VR tipping point, but exhibits like this push us exponentially closer.

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Your Personal Avatar Can Now Board the Cruise Ship With You

The world’s largest cruise company has developed a ship-wide location-tracking platform that provides you with a personalized digital cruise experience.

Is this the next generation of Disney MagicBand?

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Nreal raises $15 million and shows off its 3-ounce mixed reality smart glasses

Nreal said it has raised $15 million and is unveiling its mixed reality (MR) smart glasses today at CES 2019, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas.

AR is getting smaller and smaller....

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Audi and Disney want to spice up your Uber ride with VR

“Mobility, as we know it today, will radically change,” Holoride co-founder Nils Wollny says. “The infrastructure will change, the architecture or vehicles will change, the way we access mobility will change. And, most importantly, the experience will change. So the passenger moves into the focus, and content — especially entertainment — will be a major driving force for the mobility experience of the future.”

Eventually, we’ll get VR out of the headset, especially in a controlled environment like a car or an elevator. Meanwhile, these are important steps to shift how we think about our idle time in places that used to require our focus.

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Marc Andreessen: VR will be ‘1,000’ times bigger than AR

I think AR has tons of potential applications, both at work and at home. [But] I think VR is going to be about 1,000 times bigger. In the Valley right now, this is a very contrarian view. The general theme that you hear is that AR will be bigger than VR, and obviously it should be.

Ok, Andreessen has the street cred to say whatever he wants, but I think this is a massively pointless statement. The devices—and eventually contact lenses then bio implants—that replace today's headsets will converge. AR and VR will simply be modes on the same device.

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Fjord Trends 2019

A look at what's ahead for the future of business, technology and design.

I look forward to Fjord's trends every year, and am delighted that they also see the increasing merge of physical and digital design as a trend for 2019. At Gensler, we're focused on exactly this, and we've built a team of industry experts to lead this seamless integration.

This quote from the article sums up what drives us perfectly: "Design of spaces will become more holistic. Across both work and retail spaces, digital and physical will become fully entwined and influence each other more closely. It will become harder to distinguish between permanent and moveable space, business- or art-focused space, and publicly- or privately-owned space. Those that can’t afford to either invest in work or retail space or drive differentiation in the physical environment will give up market share to those that can."

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Microsoft to hold HoloLens 2 press event next month

Microsoft has been working on its next-generation HoloLens headset for years. Codenamed Sydney, the headset is expected to include an improved field of view, and be a lot lighter and more comfortable to wear. HoloLens 2 will also include Microsoft’s latest generation of the Kinect sensor and a custom AI chip to improve performance.

The HoloLens is a platform I’m very excited about and represents a ton of potential—which is to say it’s not that great today. However, it’s a crucial step to improve AR in the real world.