The Nespresso flagship in New York required a media wall connecting the retail and experience zones. The work needed to hold a calm material language throughout long opening hours and register visitor presence as part of that composition.
These requirements created an early content decision: whether to produce a sequence of fixed visual assets or develop a system that generated its output continuously.
Duration as a design condition
A pre-rendered sequence gives the production team exact control over every frame. It also has a defined duration. Scheduling and variation can extend the programme, while each asset retains a beginning and an end.
A generative system authors a different kind of artefact. Rules define the visual field, its permitted variation and its response to time or external input. The output develops continuously within those boundaries.
For Nespresso, the wall sits in a space where visitors can linger, return and encounter it across the day. Continuous behaviour aligned with that condition. The content could retain a stable material identity while each moment emerged from the current state of the simulation and the activity around it.
The client initially requested pre-rendered content with subtle changes in speed and movement based on visitor proximity. Refractiv demonstrated what a generative system could achieve within the same spatial and visual brief. The client recognised its potential, and the generative approach became the basis of the installation.
Authoring a fluid visual system
Refractiv developed a real-time fluid simulation. Coffee and cream form a slow visual language, emerging, folding and dissolving within an authored range of colour and motion.
The system generates the image frame by frame. Its authorship lies in the rules: fluid behaviour, palette, force, dissipation, scale and the limits placed on visitor influence. These parameters keep the output connected to the intended material character while allowing continuous variation.
The visual system and its input/output layer operate as one controlled runtime. The implementation remains specific to the delivered system; what visitors encounter is the behaviour in the space.
Connecting presence to the composition
Refractiv designed a sensing layer that combines computer vision with multiple LiDARs. Visitor movement and proximity become forces within the fluid field. A nearby person gains local influence, producing ripples, trails and wake patterns that remain briefly before merging into the wider flow.
The interaction uses the same visual material as the autonomous composition. Presence changes its local behaviour while the wall retains one continuous operating mode. This keeps the response legible and preserves the overall visual character.
The operating model changes with the content model
A generative installation maintains software, configuration, sensing and hardware as an operating system. Daily playback centres on startup, runtime state and system health.
For Nespresso, Refractiv's scope included hardware specification, sensor layout, on-site implementation and calibration. The permanent runtime therefore required the visual system and sensing layer to be aligned with the installed geometry and store conditions.
Ongoing support can include software diagnosis, sensor recalibration, version control, configuration backup and the introduction of new authored states. These responsibilities should be defined alongside the content approach because they determine how the work continues after opening.
Choosing between fixed and generative media
Fixed sequences provide exact frame-level composition and a familiar production workflow. Generative systems provide continuous output, real-time response and variation within authored rules. Hybrid systems can combine scheduled sequences with live elements or generative transitions.
The appropriate model follows the spatial purpose, required duration, degree of response, update strategy and operational capacity. At Nespresso New York, those conditions supported a continuous generative system whose visual language and sensing behaviour were developed as one work.
For a generative visual system or a study comparing content models for a permanent installation, contact Refractiv.
Related project: Nespresso New York interactive video wall. Related capabilities: Generative Visual Systems and Sensing and Spatial Response.
