Nespresso NYC
Nespresso’s flagship store in New York needed a video wall that could connect the retail zone and the experience zone without becoming a literal interface. A discreet sensing layer shapes a continuous visual language of coffee and cream in real time.
Project Details
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Year:2025
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End Client:Nespresso USA
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Location:New York, USA
Spatial context:Nespresso flagship store, New York
Media layer:Interactive video wall
Sensing / input:Computer vision fused with multiple LiDARs
Software layer:GLSL, Python
Refractiv role:Interactive system design, real-time generative visual design, media architecture consulting, hardware specification, sensor layout, implementation, calibration
Operational model:Continuous generative runtime for long retail opening hours
Brief and site condition
The Nespresso flagship in New York required an interactive installation that felt continuous and distinct, responded to visitor presence without becoming a gamified interface, and avoided canned video loops. In a retail setting where people linger, return, and spend time near the wall, the content needed to remain alive across long opening hours while staying calm, premium, and materially aligned with the brand.
Computer vision for retail interaction
A discreet sensing layer tracks how people move through the space and translates that choreography into subtle forces within a generative fluid simulation. Because the system is generative, the content never resolves into a fixed sequence with a visible reset point.
As visitors draw closer, their presence gains weight inside the simulation, allowing them to steer the liquid motion nearby. Ripples, drifting trails and soft wake patterns linger briefly before merging back into the whole.
Coffee and cream form a slow visual language that continuously emerges and dissolves. The result is a digital painting in motion, shaped by the people in the store.
The interaction is deliberately restrained. The wall does not announce itself as an interface or ask to be used. It registers the room and lets presence alter the behaviour of the visual field, so that density, proximity and movement leave traces inside one coherent brand language. That is what makes the installation feel alive while remaining controlled, discreet and operationally appropriate for a flagship retail environment.
Credits
Refractiv
Living spatial system design: interactive system design, real-time generative visual design, and media architecture consulting, including hardware specification, sensor layout, on-site implementation, and calibration. Scope included creative direction, custom generative system development, fluid simulation, and interactive programming.
Bartolini/Lanzi Architects
Architecture and interior design.
Stingray and Commersive Solutions
Project lead, initial concept and pitch, and AV integration.
Photography courtesy of Nespresso USA.