Our intention was to simplify the ordering process at the bar and to kill time spend waiting for your drink in a playful way while.

From a practical standpoint the technology ensures a more pleasant ordering experience and increases social interaction. Ordering at the bar can be annoying and waiters do not always know who is next in line. This bar solves this in a practical way though on screen graphics and visualisation.

From a technical standpoint there were many challenges. The strobes and moving lights easily confuse the camera tracking while water spillage on the surface and throbbing bass could have easily messed with the alignment mirrors. We worked around these to make sure that the computer vision was adaptable to the club environment.

The complex technology innovation created exclusively for Heineken has been built of 8 projectors in total, driven by 4 servers with a total of 16 infrared cameras. Due to the triangular shape of the surface, the mapping is complicated and the alignment took quite a bit of work to get it right.

Over four days in Milan, the live exhibit saw 13,000 visitors – designers/design enthusiasts, journalists and clubbers. This design community was exactly the audience the event wanted to attract to showcase Heineken’s design credentials and progressive nature.

More than 1,500 tweets and 500+ articles were written in design and lifestyle media globally. Consequently, elements of the club are now being taken into production, starting with elements appearing in Asia in 2013, and across the globe directly after. As a result of the enormous success of the first 'co-creation' project, Heineken has decided to organize the second edition of the 'Open Design Explorations' at Salone del Mobile 2013.

Technology developed for the bar is now being used for other projects that range from building projections to digital art installations and can facilitate other brands and events.

“This disco gets a wowsers from Wallpaper*!” Wallpaper* magazine

“Heineken’s Milan concept club project was a real highlight of the Milan fair. Ambitious in scope and extremely well executed, it really moved the brand forward”, Ben Spriggs, Sunday Times Style