Clicbot Experiential Store

Wen Studio

A Cave of Light Crystal, Clicbot Experiential Store

• Architects

In combining the fantastical visuality of the crystal caves with a futuristic aesthetic, Yatofu has created a Cave of Light Crystal for Clicbot to serve as their first experience center at in the World Trade Center Tower III in Beijing. Clicbot is an intelligent coding robot designed to educate while interacting with kids through play. Their product consists of programmable modular pieces that can configure into thousands of formations, and transform into a range of pre-designed characters with distinct personalities. In conceptualizing the experience center, Yatofu wanted to create an otherworldly environment which could become home to a colony of these lifelike robot creatures, and looked to the crystal caves of South America as a source of inspiration. Visitors of the space are made to feel as if they had discovered a futuristic realm inhabited by these curious and active beings.

Shards of light pierce through the space in a rhythmical pattern, creating separate areas for the robots’ various activities. At the front of the store a chorus of dancing and singing robots welcome guests into their home; at the heart of the space in a larger cave, groups of robot characters are engaging in various activities such as tai-chi and instrument playing. At the back of the space is a darker and warmer cave-like-space where children are invited to partake in workshops or hands-on experiences in building, coding, and playing with the modular robot pieces. Long bands of LED screens wrap and sweep through the space, allowing animated robot characters to live, play and race amongst the robot colony.

Yatofu’s collaboration with Clicbot has resulted in a unique presentation of a tech product, where the sense of interaction and approachability is key. The concept of rendering the showroom as a cave where the robots live allows children and adults alike to approach unfamiliar technology with a sense of ease, wonderment and novelty, and at the same time introduces coding to children in a intuitive and interactive way.