The Nissan Pavilion In Yokohama
The culture and history of Japan are a thousand years old. Yet the country has only taken its seat at the world’s dinner table around 170 years ago. But its history has given it deep roots and once it poked its head into the sun, there was no stopping it. No other country has kicked open history’s door with as much vigour, or was able to seamlessly and perfectly create the future while still venerating its past.
Since the early thirties, Nissan has been a central pillar of this sudden and startling journey. So when Covid threw its evil curveball at the world at the beginning of ’20, it was notable if not surprising that Nissan was one of the first to find a way to carry on and expand its work while the world was searching for answers.
The combination of physical lockdown and economic meltdown meant car showrooms stood empty. Yet Nissan, like other progressive brands, has long since transcended from making cars to creating mobility. It had a vision to share, it had people, not only drivers, to inspire. Nissan needed to tell the world about its plans, its dreams, how it would seamlessly connect people across cities, societies, countries. But it had to do this in a way that would inspire rather than expire its audience.
Enter the Nissan Pavilion in Yokohama, a very high-tech 10 000 square-metre space, that tells the story of how Nissan sees the future. It was created by TBWA/Hakuhodo and features a 4K projection screen and vibrating floor with Sony haptics tech. Haptics is the science of imparting information through touch. Your phone vibrating in your pocket is a micro-example of haptics.
Okay, Nissan is all about mobility now, but this still involves cars, and Pavilion features the new EV Ariya in a uniquely Japanese way. The car is presented using calligraphy and you can enter an experiential video to drive it through a virtual city.
Part of Nissan’s new mobility is its progressive development of self-driving tech and abundant availability of information. These aspects are cleverly demonstrated in the interactive café at the Pavilion through ProPILOT robot waiters serving diners, who can both charge their phones wirelessly at the tables and use them to determine the nutritional value of their meals.
The Nissan Pavilion was originally meant to complement the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but these have now been postponed to at least next year. In the meantime, however, the repurposed non-car car showroom has proven to be a boon to every day, even non-driving, Japanese keen to get a view of what the future might hold.
Obviously with COVID still flexing its muscles and climate change reminding us that it has in no way gone away, we don’t know what the future will hold for the way we move around and interact. We will continuously update you with these topics as they come to our attention and you are more than welcome to keep an eye on this blog to see what’s coming.
