# Immersive Product Experience Spaces: How to Design a Room Around a Product > An immersive product experience space uses projection, LED, transparent screens, sound, scent or motion to show what a product does, while the real product stays in the room. Design starts from what the product hides -- its inside, an invisible performance, a choice, a sensation or a story -- and picks the technique that reveals it. **Published:** 2026-11-07 - **By:** MLABART ## What is an immersive product experience space? An immersive product experience space is a room built so that visitors understand a product by experiencing it, not by reading about it. Projection, LED, transparent screens, sound, scent or kinetic structures do the explaining, and the real product stays in the room, where visitors can see and touch it. That is the difference from an immersive art exhibition, where the content itself is the subject. These spaces appear in flagship stores, brand experience centres, showrooms, trade-show booths, launches and pop-ups. The idea behind them is old: in their 1998 Harvard Business Review article "Welcome to the Experience Economy", B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore argued that experiences are an economic offering in their own right, distinct from goods and services. A product space applies that idea to selling goods. - [Harvard Business Review -- Pine & Gilmore, "Welcome to the Experience Economy" (July-August 1998)](https://hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-the-experience-economy) ## Start from what the product hides Most products cannot show their best quality on a shelf: it is inside the casing, it happens only in use, or it is a feeling. The technique should follow from what is hidden, not from which screen is fashionable: | What the product hides | Technique | What the visitor does | MLABART example | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Its inside -- components, mechanism | Exploded view on an anamorphic (naked-eye) 3D screen | Watches parts fly out of the frame and reassemble | Midea dishwasher corner screen, IFA 2026 Berlin | | Function in context | Content layered on the real unit with transparent LED or OLED | Sees the product and its story in one view | Midea R290 unit with a lifting transparent LED box; TCL refrigerator window with transparent OLED, IFA 2026 | | A performance you cannot see | Side-by-side switch, feature on and off | Toggles and judges the difference | TCL AI picture and AI sound walls, IFA 2026 | | A choice -- materials, colours, fit | Physical samples read by RFID, or touch to configure | Picks a sample and sees the product change | Midea cabinet-material table, IFA 2026; Estée Lauder Print & Play lipstick | | A sensation -- scent, texture | Sampling built into a short game, with something to take home | Plays, smells, leaves with a card | Atelier Cologne fragrance pop-up | | A story -- origin, craft, time | A physical model with projection, or a kinetic sculpture | Watches the story move on a real object | Starbucks sand-table projection; Rolex "Oyster Story" kinetic piece | - ![General-principle chart matching what a product hides to the technique that reveals it. Its inside: exploded view on an anamorphic 3D screen. Function in context: content layered on the real unit with a transparent screen. Invisible performance: a side-by-side on-and-off switch. A choice of materials or colours: physical samples read by RFID. A sensation such as scent: sampling inside a short game with a take-home. A story: a physical model with projection, or a kinetic sculpture. The real product stays in view in every case.](https://mlabart.com/insights/immersive-product-experience-space/what-the-product-hides.svg) ## How should visitors move through the space? A product space works as a sequence, and each stop has one job. Our general-practice sequence has five: - Attract -- something legible from outside the space or across the hall: a large moving image, a kinetic structure, a crowd at a game. - Reveal -- the immersive moment that shows what the product hides. Keep it short enough that the next group is not kept waiting. - Touch -- the real product, within reach, lit properly, with staff or a screen nearby to answer questions. - Compare or configure -- the visitor makes a choice: a switch, a sample, a colour. A choice is more memorable than a claim. - Take away -- a photo, a printed card, a QR code to the product page, a sample: the bridge from the room to a purchase. - ![General-principle visitor path through an immersive product space in five stops: attract, something legible from across the hall; reveal, a short immersive moment showing what the product hides; touch, the real product within reach and properly lit; compare or configure, the visitor makes a choice; take away, a photo, card, QR code or sample. The real product is present at every stop.](https://mlabart.com/insights/immersive-product-experience-space/visitor-path.svg) ## What MLABART has built Midea at IFA 2026, Berlin. Two anamorphic 3D corner screens: on one, dishwasher components, plates and a dish rack burst out of the frame; on the other, the words SPACE MASTER open into a deep space that leads to a refrigerator. Over an R290 outdoor unit, a transparent LED box lowers so the content sits on the product and lifts to reveal the real unit. A material table reads ceramic, wood and stone samples by RFID and changes the cabinet on screen. TCL at IFA 2026, Berlin. A transparent OLED screen sits inside the refrigerator display window, with graphics floating among the food, and a transparent screen stands on the laundry tower. On the AI picture and AI sound walls, visitors switch the AI processing on and off on a tablet and judge the difference themselves. Starbucks, Shanghai. For a store themed on the painting "A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains", MLABART built a physical sand table of the landscape and blended three 1920 x 1080 laser projectors over it, with video positioned to the terrain so ridges and slopes match the moving image, switching on and off on the store's daily schedule. Atelier Cologne and Rolex. For Atelier Cologne, a blue immersive pop-up with a glowing fragrance spray and a game that ends with a printed scent card. For Rolex's "Oyster Story" exhibition at the West Bund Dome in Shanghai (10-28 June 2026), a mirror-steel kinetic "time machine" in which robotic arms carry green glass modules around a central dial. - [MLABART case: Midea at IFA 2026 Berlin](https://mlabart.com/work/midea-ifa-berlin-2026/) - [MLABART case: TCL at IFA 2026 Berlin](https://mlabart.com/work/tcl-ifa-berlin-2026/) - [MLABART case: Starbucks sand-table projection](https://mlabart.com/work/starbucks-a-thousand-li/) - [MLABART case: Rolex "Oyster Story" kinetic installation](https://mlabart.com/work/rolex-oyster-story/) - [Related: Product display installations at IFA 2026 -- transparent screens, anamorphic 3D, flip matrices](https://mlabart.com/insights/ifa-2026-product-display-installations/) - ![In the Air Treatment zone of the Midea booth at IFA 2026, a transparent LED box lowered around a Midea R290 outdoor unit glows green with a round logo animation, so the content and the real product are seen together.](https://mlabart.com/cases/midea-ifa-berlin-2026/07.jpg) - ![The AI Sound and AI Picture demo walls on the TCL booth at IFA 2026, side by side: Super AI Surround Sound on one TV and the TSR AiPQ Processor with an AI MotionMaster scene on the other, where visitors switch AI processing on and off.](https://mlabart.com/cases/tcl-ifa-berlin-2026/09.jpg) ## How do you light a product inside an immersive room? Immersive media wants darkness; products want light. General practice for resolving the conflict: - Give the product its own key light, aimed so it does not fall on screens or projection surfaces. - Do not project onto the product by accident. Projection on a product is an effect to design (projection mapping), not spill to tolerate. - Watch reflections. Glass, chrome, lacquer and watch cases mirror bright screens; test the angles from where visitors actually stand. - Check colour under the real light. Cosmetics, fashion and finishes must look right under the room's lighting, not only in the render. - Design for the transparent screen. On transparent LED and OLED, dark areas of the image show what is behind, so content should be drawn with the product behind it in mind. ## Trade-show booth or permanent space? The techniques are the same; the engineering is not: | | Booth, launch or pop-up (days to weeks) | Showroom or flagship (months to years) | | --- | --- | --- | | Hardware | Event-grade, rented or reused where possible | Commercial-grade displays and PCs rated for daily hours, with spares | | Operation | Staffed throughout, restarted by the build team | Scheduled power on and off, remote monitoring, store staff trained for first-line fixes | | Content | Fixed for the event | Swappable when the product range changes, ideally without a developer | | Product units | Display units shipped and checked before the show | Units replaced at each launch; mounts and screens sized for the next model, not only the current one | | Measurement | Plays, scans, leads captured during the show | Ongoing counts of plays and scans, compared month to month | ## Questions to answer in the brief A product space is easier to design and price when the brief answers these: - Which products, how many units, and which one quality must every visitor leave knowing? - What does that quality hide -- an inside, a performance, a choice, a sensation or a story? - How long does the space run, and how many visitors an hour at peak? - Staffed or self-guided, and in which languages? - What can be claimed on screen, and who approves product claims? - What should a visitor take away, and where does it lead -- a product page, a store, a sales contact? ## Sources MLABART projects are described from project photos, videos and records. The experience-economy framing is from the cited HBR article. Visitor sequence, lighting and engineering points are general practice, marked as such. - [Harvard Business Review -- Welcome to the Experience Economy (1998)](https://hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-the-experience-economy) - [MLABART -- Product display installations at IFA 2026](https://mlabart.com/insights/ifa-2026-product-display-installations/) - [MLABART -- Planning a product launch reveal](https://mlabart.com/insights/product-launch-reveal-planning/) ## FAQ ### What is an immersive product experience space? A room where projection, LED, transparent screens, sound, scent or motion explain a product while the real product stays present to see and touch. Unlike an immersive art exhibition, the content serves the product rather than being the subject. ### How do you choose the technology for a product space? Start from what the product hides. An inside suits an exploded anamorphic 3D view; function in context suits a transparent screen over the real unit; an invisible performance suits an on/off comparison; a choice suits physical samples read by RFID; a story suits a physical model with projection or a kinetic sculpture. ### How do you keep products well lit in an immersive room? Give the product its own key light aimed away from screens, avoid accidental projection on it, test reflections from visitor positions, check colour under the actual room light, and design transparent-screen content knowing that dark areas show the product behind. ### What product spaces has MLABART built? Examples include Midea's IFA 2026 booth (anamorphic 3D corners, a lifting transparent LED box over an R290 unit, an RFID material table), TCL's IFA 2026 booth (transparent OLED in a refrigerator window, AI on/off walls), a Starbucks sand-table projection in Shanghai and a kinetic installation for Rolex's "Oyster Story" exhibition. ## Related Pages **See also:** [Product Launch Reveal Stages](https://mlabart.com/solutions/product-launch-reveals/) | [Immersive Art Exhibitions](https://mlabart.com/solutions/immersive-exhibitions/) | [Interactive LED Walls & Big Screens](https://mlabart.com/solutions/interactive-led-walls/) | [Mall Interactive Installations & Pop-ups](https://mlabart.com/solutions/mall-popup-activations/) --- **MLABART** -- Interaction - Imagination - Innovation MLABART is an interactive installation and interactive software development studio. We design, program and deliver interactive installations -- motion-sensing games, touch and AI experiences, interactive LED walls, projection mapping, naked-eye 3D and kinetic sculptures -- for mall and New Year's Eve countdown campaigns, trade-show booths and launches, and brand pop-ups, from concept and custom software through fabrication and on-site delivery. - Web: https://mlabart.com - Email: mark@touchworld-sh.com - Phone / WhatsApp: +86 18917292695 - Canonical HTML version: https://mlabart.com/insights/immersive-product-experience-space/