SONY and stellar works bring nature indoors with an oasis installation STAYDREAM

discover ‘staydream — a surreal reality’

Away from the noise of New York’s bustling Canal Street, furniture brand Stellar Works stages a ‘surreal reality’ known as STAYDREAM in collaboration with the designers at Sony‘s Creative Center. The installation debuted in time for NYCxDESIGN, and demonstrates a series of new ways that visitors can interact with interiors, harnessing design and technology to ‘bring elements of the outside to indoors.’  

The event showcases Stellar Works’ new conceptual furniture collection which integrates Sony expertise to bring each piece to life with visual and auditory elements. Luminous graphic projections are designed to transform custom Calico wallpaper, while room dividers subtly emit ambient sounds or light art. Meanwhile, a chandelier takes shape as a cluster of floating lights which together react to viewers’ movements and sounds, their energy informing the atmosphere of the room. All these responsive technologies accumulate with a bedroom — the finale of the installation — which envelops the visitor in soft sounds of nature and calming visuals.

To discover more about the collaboration, designboom interviewed with Hirotaka Tako, Head of Sony’s Design Center Europe, and Daisuke Ishii, Head of Sony’s Creative Center. Spanning two levels of the Stellar Works showroom on 304 Canal Street, the installation was open to the public until 6:00pm on May 25th, 2023. 

images © Jonathan Hokklo | video © studio crow

an immersive landscape: beyond wallpaper

The STAYDREAM installation by Sony and Stellar Works divides the showroom into a series of new environments. Upon entering, visitors are faced with a lounge backdropped by luminous, landscape mural washed in soft, calming colors. A full moon floats behind a cool mountain range. With its abstracted forms and stone-like textures, the effect obscures the boundary of where light art ends and Calico‘s ‘Beyond Wallpaper’ begins. 

Demonstrating the interactive element, Creative Director Hirotaka Tako lifts a coffee mug from the table and slowly hovers it back and forth as the massive full moon travels across the wall in response. Next, he upturns an hourglass to show the entire projection transform from a mountain scene to a wash of aquatic visuals. Daisuke Ishii described this experience as a kind of ‘passive entertainment,’ imagining its use in a hospitality environment as guests engage with these interiors during downtime spent in a lobby or lounge. 

‘We are working together with Stellar Works, sometimes using their furniture or their lights,’ says Hirotaka Tako. ‘Sometimes we might need to make original furniture with them to create the sounds and the visuals. We also brought our pure 100% Sony’s technology product into this space as well.’

a full moon floats across the wall according to the visitors’ movements

nature’s chorus

A piece that can be found throughout Sony and Stellar Works’ STAYDREAM installation is the room divider, finely crafted in wood, upholstered fabric, and stone effect version. This collection serves to introduce an element of organic nature to the space, both with its softy curving profile, and with the ambient sounds and visuals which it projects. 

With their rounded profiles, the room dividers layered together recall the image of distant hills, like those rendered along the wallpaper beyond. Integrated into the wooden or textile surfaces is a Sony-designed sound system, so that directional audio emits from the ‘Nature’s Chorus’ room divider itself to subtly fill the space. The ‘Dreamscape’ room dividers with stone effect integrate an imperceptible screen into their surfaces to emit luminous graphic visuals.

‘Most of this exhibit actually uses the Sony sensor to capture the people’s movement. It can capture the mood, atmosphere, temperature or even feeling,’ Hirotaka continues. ‘Then we try to find out how to express that invisible feeling through the camera, and translate it into experience through sound, visuals, and vibrations. You can see the ambient, subtle movement from even just one piece of light or sound. I think you can feel it.’

light art is designed to pair with Calico’s ‘Beyond Wallpaper’

a feast of light

The ground level of the installation opens up onto a dining environment showcasing an hypnotic ‘Feast of Light.’ This fixture, a suspended cluster of small lights, can be programmed to shape its environment in two different ways. One option — demonstrated at this ground-level space — is a responsive feature, which sees each light activated by motion. Passersby cause the lights to glow and dim with each having a dedicated sound delivered by the accompanying partitions, elevating the dining experience.

A second option — shown at the lower-level space — is a fixed pattern aligning with sounds of nature. The floating lights glow in tune with drops of water on stone, chirping birds, and leaves in the wind. In this cave-like, lower-level lounge, the chandelier is suspended in front of a Calico wallpaper whose slightly reflective surface suggests gold-leaf. This surface strengthens the lights’ effect as the entire room softly glows.

layered room dividers define a central dining area

a ‘dreamscape’ oasis

The installation concludes with a ‘Dreamscape’ bedroom set, which showcases all elements of the Sony and Stellar Works collaboration into one final piece. The bed is surrounded by curving surfaces to envelop the visitor like a cocoon. Like the room dividers, these surfaces emit calming sounds of nature which correspond with interactive visuals projected at the foot of the bed. From the low rumbling of stones, rippling water reflecting a sunset, and tall grasses rustling to hide distant bleating sheep — three different environments gently respond to the user’s movements on the bed.

‘I had a hint from the visuals that Stellar Works always uses. They put their furniture in an outside scene like a park, a forest, a seaside, or a riverside,’ Hirotaka Tako explains, ‘I was so inspired from the visual, and thought: maybe we can create the same atmosphere. Maybe digitally, technologically, [we can feel] the outside comfort, wind, or calm sound from the birds or trees into the inside. So then we found out how to bring those outside feelings in.’

a ‘Feast of Light’ chandelier responds to movement and sound an imperceptible screen integrates into the stone to emit luminous, graphic visuals

the collection can introduce ‘passive entertainment’ to a lounge space the ‘Dreamscape’ bedroom set envelops the visitor in calming, interactive light art and nature sounds

a screen of light dims as visitors pass by to reveal a tea room a flooded with the soft sounds of a tea ceremony room dividers are shaped to resemble layered hills, softly emitting ‘Nature’s Chorus’

project info:

project title: STAYDREAM — A Surreal Reality

designers: Sony, Stellar Works

location: Stellar Works, 304 Canal Street, New York, NY

wallpaper: Calico

on view: May 18th — May 25th, 2023

photography: © Jonathan Hokklo | @hawkclaw

video: © studio crow | @studiocrow.co