Gabriele De Santis Cabinet of Wonders / IKEA
IKEA / Exhibition conceptArt direction · Digital · Spatial experience

Cabinet of Wonders

Cabinet of Wonders: three surreal rooms, in red, light blue and green, opening up before your eyes

The familiar.
Like you’ve never seen it.

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01 / The starting pointThe ordinary, from another angle

Because routine
doesn’t make memories.

Project

Cabinet of Wonders
Brand experience concept / IKEA

Scope

Art direction
Integrated campaign
Exhibition & interaction design

By

Gabriele De Santis
Ludovica Piccinini

In a world where everything looks the same, only what breaks the rules sticks.

Cabinet of Wonders imagines an IKEA space where everyday furniture becomes a surreal experience. You walk in, explore and make connections: with objects and with people.

The context, the goal, the answer
The context

Win back attention.

In a home furnishing landscape that keeps getting more visual, emotional and personal, familiarity risks turning into invisibility.

The goal

Rekindle curiosity.

Bring younger generations closer to the world of IKEA through an immersive space that turns a visit into a discovery.

The answer

Open the ordinary.

Catch the eye off guard and bring the impossible into everyday furniture. Even the familiar can become extraordinary.

02 / The campaignOut of home + Social

The unexpected,
before you walk in.

A room inside a cube. A door that lights up. The campaign previews the language of the exhibition and turns curiosity into the first step of the experience.

Cabinet of Wonders. A light blue cube, open to reveal a room with an armchair, and a glowing white door. “Stravolgi l’ordinario” (Open the ordinary), February 20 – August 20, at IKEA in Milan.
Skip the animation, go to the billboards ↓
Billboard campaign
The two Cabinet of Wonders billboards: a light blue structure with a blue poster and a coral structure with a red poster
More of the campaign
Outdoor campaign Social campaign ↓
The landscape Cabinet of Wonders billboards: the blue visual and the red visual side by side
A visual system that’s recognizable, repeatable and surprising. Campaign rollout / 02
03 / The digital thresholdWeb experience

Wonder
starts online.

The world of the exhibition takes shape on screen, too. Color, motion and depth guide visitors from their first encounter with the project all the way into the experience.

Desktop mockup of the Cabinet of Wonders web experience
From screen to space.Digital walkthrough
04 / The experience

Enter the
EXHIBITION.

Beyond the door,
the rules change.

The entrance to the Cabinet of Wonders exhibition: three colorful rooms behind the illuminated sign
Cross the thresholdEntrance film / 00:09
The device / WonderCubeSymbol of the three connected cubes

Meet the
WonderCube.

Your interactive passport
to Cabinet of Wonders.

Three WonderCubes in red, light blue and green, each holding a different miniature IKEA room
01 / Discover

A little world.
Yours to discover.

Each WonderCube holds a different element, a unique function, a small mystery to unravel.

Your interactive passport to Cabinet of Wonders.

Close-up of the WonderCubes and the magnetic pins that join them together
02 / Connect

The secret
is in the details.

Special magnetic pins let the cubes connect physically. Every element is a possibility; every encounter, a new combination.

A simple gesture, a shared experience.

A red WonderCube moves toward a green one until the magnetic pins join them together
03 / Transform

Together,
a world opens up.

The real secret unlocks only with others. Connect your WonderCubes and discover new ways to interact with the installations.

Scroll to connect the cubes ↓

Three little worlds. Three possibilities to discover.

Scroll to explore ↓On to the installations ↗
Installation 01From object to relationship

COLLABORATION
sparks CREATIVITY.

The interactive screen showing a miniature IKEA room, inside the installation
The installationExperience film / 00:10

Discovery is personal.
Wonder is built together.

The WonderCube invites visitors to combine their elements. Connecting objects becomes a way to connect people: from an individual experience to a shared discovery.

Two WonderCubes joined together on the installation unit, next to the control screen
The gesture becomes the input.Interaction detail
Physical ↔ Digital

Connect.
Activate.
Take part.

A facade of colorful IKEA home settings, reimagined as exhibition rooms
The system of rooms takes shape in space.Spatial concept
Installation 02A play on proportions

EXPLORE new
PERSPECTIVES.

Each room mirrors the other.
Every glance creates a connection.

A visitor looks at a miniature room inside a light blue display case
Another point of view, literally.Room A / The cabinet
A

A whole new point of view.

The display case holds a miniature of the room next door. Anyone who walks into that room appears here as a hologram, in real time: a new perspective on others.

B

The scale flips.

An LED panel on the ceiling streams live footage from the display case room. Visitors become towering figures above you, turning the proportions of the space upside down.

The two connected rooms: a display case in the light blue room, and giant visitors on the ceiling of the green one
Two rooms. One connection.A ↔ B / Live connection
The journey continues

Not a place to see.
A world to walk through.

A corridor of furniture, colors and surreal perspectives inside the exhibition
Keep exploringCorridor film / 00:12
05 / One last perspectiveCabinet of Wonders
The animated finale of Cabinet of Wonders, by Gabriele De Santis and Ludovica Piccinini

The world hasn’t changed.
The way you see it has, a little.

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