VICO™ at the heart of VIE's new visitor centre

The visitor centre at the Vienna airport, also known as "VISITAIR Center", fulfills several tasks: to dialog with the population in the neighbouring towns (Dialogue Forum) and to present the airport as such ("Airport Organism") as a motor force of the economy and a success story listed at the stock market.

uma was entrusted with the entire conception, design and implementation of this visitor centre. Various interactive stations were set up to introduce the visitor to the topic areas related to the airport. These included a knowledge quiz about interesting aspects of the airport, expert interviews about the dialogue forum as well as the possibility to compare different sources of noise.

The central element of this project is VICO™, an interactive table with a projection area of 2.4 x 0.9m. It offers enough room for various simultaneous interactions. The usage and interaction are so simple, that both a person or a whole group, such as a school class, for instance, are encouraged to dive into the adventures of the airport and its impact on the neighbourhood.

The table is operated via so-called "markers", which are handed out to the visitors. On the screen, hotspots are lit up, which are similar in shape and size to the markers. These represent important locations of the airport, which is represented from a bird's eye view in the background (including photos, technical drawings or related animations of the airport's area with various zoom levels). Whenever a visitor puts a marker on a hotspot, a window opens up displaying detailed information about the building or event in text or image form or as slideshows.