Hublot
Watches & Wonders
Experience Hublot’s new watches, with all in-house materials and movements. In the 2024 edition of Watches & Wonders Geneva, Hublot invited esteemed watchmakers and horology connoisseurs to discover the latest generation of the Unico movement.
A new generation of detail
To honour Hublot’s craftsmanship, FutureDeluxe designed an exhibition booth that visualised perpetual movement in the form of a kinetic sculpture at its centre. The space felt more akin to an art installation, with a 16m-wide LED screen surrounding the circular sculpture, its curves mimicked in the shape of the welcome desk and the watch stands in the outer vitrines.
The 8-metre tall installation was custom-built from stainless steel to evoke the watch mechanism. Suspended in infinite motion at the centre of the room, the sculpture included a series of bespoke H-head bolts, replicating the ones designed for Hublot watches.
To complete the visitors’ journey through the Unico movement, a 270-degree LED screen created a subtle immersive atmosphere, ambiently displaying the mechanism’s true complexity, plus the Unico movement film and a watchmaking film. Hublot’s watch selection was also displayed in custom vitrines and a central showcase designed by FutureDeluxe.
The sound was of equal importance to the visual experience, through collaboration with the artist Verraco, a modified version of the track from the Unico film was incorporated into the experience, with a series of ambient scores to provide a serene atmosphere.
Research & development
As with any physical installation, FutureDeluxe had to consider how the different structural elements interacted in the space and how the visitor physically experienced the environment. This was possible through virtual production techniques – 3D render tools such as Cinema 4D were utilised to design the kinetic sculpture. The number, shape and size of each panel were carefully considered – as well as whether they were static or moving at various speeds – to ensure the overall sculpture felt dynamic, whilst abstractly representing how energy is stored and transferred within the Unico mechanism. This facilitated collaboration with the fabricators and rigging specialists as they refined the design to adhere to engineering requirements, with VR headsets helping to understand the scale of the sculpture.
Pre-visualisation tools were key in understanding the development of the installation and how the different elements worked together in the space. Notch, a real-time VFX tool, was employed to simulate how the lighting moved and bounced off the blades and visualised how the LED screen content was distributed and its reflections on the sculpture. Notch was also instrumental in the production of the ambient interstitial material between the two films, allowing swift experimentation due to its reduced render times.
Designed, Directed and Produced by FutureDeluxe
Client: Hublot
Executive Creative Director: Curtis Baigent
Creative Director: Ben Kreukniet
Creative Director: Andrea Cuius
Executive Producer/Design Innovation Director: Svet Lapcheva
Lead Producer: Eleni Willmott
Executive Producer: Sophie Keyse
Technical Director: Louis Mustill
Lighting Director: Matthew Button
Notch Designer: Mike Wilson
Animators: Chris Harrison, Kim Taylor, Husni Wahab
Media Server Operator: William Steggles
Retoucher: Marianna Peroulaki
Interior architect: Fabienne Sommer
Original soundtrack: Veracco
Audio Post-Production: Syncbox Post
Vitrine and Showcase Fabricator: RealiseLive
Kinetic Sculpture Fabrication & Engineering: RoboChallenge
Scenic Fabrication: Mathys
AV Supplier: Winkler LiveCom
Rigging: Palexpo, Outback Rigging
Freight: Fly by Nite