GIANT MOVING ROCK
Brand Activations
For London Fashion Week February 2023 WI have been asked to think of an engineering solution to make a giant indoor rock move slowly left/right & rotate 360° over a sandy desert surface. A pure, abstract and powerful ‘planetary’ narrative to support and contrast with an explosively extravagant fashion show.
#WISOLUTIONEERS
Eye opener for us WI crew: appearances might be deceiving. Or why a seemingly simple creative idea is in fact not that simple at all when you want to breathe it to life. Challenge: how to make a colossal ‘space rock’ move gently over sand without leaving any traces except for the creative configuration as part of the narrative.
Creative Vision
It goes without saying that it took us quite some tech figuring out to shove this puzzle together and deliver a construction looking and moving the exact same way the traditionally crazy - so visionary - fashion creatives of this project had in mind.
Why this project is WI proof: the start up from just an idea and the magnitude of the construction. Geert Stockmans - Project Lead.
MOVING ROCK
For the rotating movement we used a WI-Rotator TP08, for the translateral motion runners in WI-Track Wagons with a precision of 4,8Nm. Combined with an EVO PM 015 drive proved to be the best solution.
REVERSE TRACK PRINCIPLE
A WI-Rotator TP08 has been custom upgraded to perfectly fit for the wagons to be built on it. Runners in WI-Track are integrated in the construction to allow the requested motion while rotating. What makes it unique is that the tracks are built inside the wagon so it is the track that does the translation and not vice versa as is usually the case when it is the wagons that move. The rock is then built around the frame built on the tracks. Motion is steered by our WIMOTION software and operated from a WIDESK Lite. Max carrying weight: 1000kg at 10rpm and goes up to 19,5 tons at 6.2 rpm.
The tracks are built inside the wagons so it is the track that moves and not the wagon as is usually the case. Jasper Rosiers - Project Manager.
FLYING VIDEO SCREEN
Besides the spectacular moving rock eyecatcher WI were also in the game for a spectacular up/down moving video screen for which we used 8 WIMOTION controlled WIHOISTS-TP30. A unique visual experience.
WITEAM
- Geert Stockmans - Project Lead
- Jasper Rosiers - Project Manager
- Wessel Fortuin - Engineer
- Tim Bernaerts - R&D
FABRICATION
- Bart Lievens
- Rudy Dierckx
CREW ONSITE
- Dimitri Christiaens
- Xander Ballet