Located in one of New York’s busiest transportation centers – The Occulus World Trade Center – FordHub is an experiential space designed to show the public how Ford’s expansion from a traditional auto manufactuer to a mobility company is helping change the way the world moves.
Move Freely —
Kinetic / Ineractive Marble Run
A futuristic twist on the classic rolling marble machine that visually brings to life the flow of a traffic and urban mobility system in a whimsical and complex physical art installation. Fabricated out of minimal white and blue plexiglass forms and dozens of custom 3D-printed elements, the entire installation is as much a design object as it is a retail attraction.
To amplify the sense of flowing traffic, the tracks of the installation are augmented with responsive LED light strips that are triggered by marbles racing down the highways.
The project was concepted, designed, and physically executed in a very accelerated time period leading up to the opening of the brand experience / retail space.
Moving from initial sketches to 3D to final fabrication and installation almost simultaneously required rapid design iterations, adjustments and real-time testing.
Light Wheels —
Model Car Array Sculpture /
Responsive Light Installation
A large scale responsive installation constructed from over 6,000 die-cast model Ford cars that wraps across three walls in the space.
The model cars formed a massive array — each mounted atop glowing, transparent acrylic rods — making each car a 'pixel'. The different elevations of the rods created a single undulating topographical sculptural form that flows across the walls.
Each car has a small LED inside making the entire installation function as a large ‘screen’. In an idle state, dynamic patterns of light would move through the array of model cars. In an active state the wall reacts to the movements of visitors as they explore the space.
For the storefront windows we designed and produced an eye-catching lenticular / kinetic sign — with a message and color gradient that changed as busy commuters rushed past.
