T-Gallery, 2010 / 2015

Bonn, Germany

How can future vision be made tangible? This is a question which frequently occurs in connection with the idea of innovation. In the T-Gallery in Bonn, visitors gain direct experience of everyday situations featuring new technologies and services which will become a reality in the future. This enables them to understand how networked living and working might look in the future from the perspective of the end user.

The T-Gallery was designed as an instrument for future development so as to support the collaborative work done by all the experts involved in the innovation process and in product development. The circular building has a surface area of 1,600 square metres. It reopened in March 2010 after undergoing thorough refinement.

Based on a person’s daily routine, the T-Gallery presents the areas of home, out-and-about, work and cross-sections between life and society. A total of 120 application scenarios bring each of these areas to life.

Thematic areas, projection space and media installations developed for this purpose create a variety of environments (e.g. living room, car, aeroplane, conference room) as an emotional and functional context which seems real and in which prototypes can be used. A 100-metre dynamic projection band running around the T-Gallery visualises such elements as living situations at home, city life and travelling by car, train and aeroplane: this acts as an interactive space controlled by gestures, voice commands and a growing variety of end devices.

The modular structure of the T-Gallery enables content and surfaces to be personalised and responsive to individual interests. In terms of its technical set-up, the T-Gallery is also modular and designed as an open platform which allows new concepts, technologies and designs to be integrated on an ongoing basis.