With nearly 39% of households categorized as a single person occupancy dwelling, alongside ranking as the 9th most expensive city to live, Seoul, South Korea has emerged as a hot bed of creative multi-use and space saving designs. If you need any proof of the claim, just take a look at VILLAGE, a concept imagined by Seunghyun Ko, Seohyun Park, Minji Kang, and Ye Jin Lee as a novel means of integrating a portable projection system into the form/utility of an automated window treatment.
Co-designer Seunghyun Ko describes VILLAGE as “a living product that proposes a new lifestyle experience of ‘separate and together’ for single-person households living in a single room, based on the concept of ‘furnitureization of appliances.’”
Integrating a portable projector unit into an automated curtain shade system is certainly a unique approach to hiding technology in plain sight. It seems perplexingly out of the blue until one connects the dots – dimming natural ambient light improves a projector’s performance in brightness and clarity.
The central projection unit, a design that looks remarkably similarly in shape and size to a slightly truncated Sonos Roam portable audio speaker, secures into a wall mounted frame by magnets, sliding automatically to the left or right according to user programmed scheduling.
Installed onto the frame, the display and sensor unit begins each day as a gentle alarm clock, projecting time, temperature, humidity, and a daily to-do schedule directly underneath onto the closest wall or surface. Once it has completed opening the shades, the projector unit moves back to the right side of the sliding frame, allowing users to detach it to be used elsewhere around the home throughout the day.
A variety of sensors including two cameras, one main projection lens, LiDAR, a motion sensor, and microphone informs VILLAGE of its surrounding environment and the occupants within it in three dimensions.
Cribbing from the interactivity of a virtual keyboard projection device, VILLAGE displays images, video, websites, or other useful information onto nearby flat surfaces, allowing users to manipulate elements using a slew of device’s built-in sensors. It’s not all about imaging either; an integrated touch-UI audio speaker adds aural instructional capabilities for working out or following along to a recipe.
With existing compact projectors like the LG CineBeam Qube and Samsung Freestyle already illustrating the flexibility of laser projection technology, it’s not impossible to conceive electronics manufacturers will soon integrate projection interactivity similar to VILLAGE not just along windows, but conceivably under kitchen cabinetry, across garage work surfaces, and anywhere a traditional screen could never exist.
To learn more about VILLAGE, visit behance.net.