We designed a trade fair stand for the Luxor Solar GmbH company for the Intersolar 2011 in Munich. The main question when considering how to best frame two products—a monocrystalline and a polycrystalline solar panel—at the world’s largest solar industry trade fair was, “How and in what setting should we present these high-quality solar panels, which, however, do not look very different from the other solar panels on the market?”
We had the further task of communicating the central concept behind Luxor through the stand design and structure as our client’s communication concept stipulated that the product be directly imparted to interested customers by its staff using i-pads rather than through posters or slogans. We proposed making the main concept behind Luxor Solar, “We want to contribute to redesigning the future and to help to solve energy problems,” tangible using a walk-through simulacrum of the solar city “Luxcity”, making the stand an unusual three-dimensional experience space. Welcome to Luxcity! Visitors to the trade fair find themselves above the roofs of the solar city in this 104 sqm (13 x 8 m) stand. Seemingly floating— as in Lindgren’s Karlsson-on-the-Roof—visitors can gaze into the depths of a cityscape, over endless roofs and small lanes with street lamps between them. Luxor is demonstrating its vision of the potential development of urban roofscapes: all of the roof surfaces have been fitted with solar panels.
A gold-coloured reflecting floor surface enables the view over this solar city, Luxcity, and also optically doubles the volume of the trade fair stand. Everything stands on its head above the mirror. The small buildings hang from the ceiling, their roofs complete with solar panels stretching down towards the visitor. Some roofs stretch so far down that their undersides can be used as tables for conversations with interested visitors to the fair. The façade of the two-storey stand structure, which provides space for storage, a kitchen and an information point as well as three meeting rooms, also stands on its head: the gable is a seating alcove, the roof protrusion is an information point and, in conjunction with the stairs, the whole thing is reminiscent of an M.C. Escher painting.
