Daimaru, a Japanese department store chain, has developed and unveiled a breathtaking display that combines components of engineering and the beauty of nature. Known as the “Flower Mirror,” this interactive feature is a wall-like display with 16 x 10-foot dimensions that contains a colorful array of 3,000 flowers. The flower mirror’s biggest draw to tourists and visitors is the ability to bloom its flowers in correspondence to people walking past or up to the mirror.
The floral wall’s reactive blooming is operated by 800 pre-installed movable motors that push out a secondary layer of darker-colored flowers over the top layer of lighter flowers. Whenever someone approaches the flower mirror, sensors detect their silhouette, which causes the darker flowers to react by forming a shape with proportional dimensions. For example, if you were to walk up to the flower mirror, a cluster of dark-colored flowers would emerge from the initial layer of lighter ones that form an exact shape of your shadow, and can even mimic the movements of your limbs.
In addition to mimicking movements, the flower mirror can also form shapes, patterns, and even textual messages that have been preprogrammed in the display. One such message spells out “Diamaru” one letter at a time.
Founded in the early 18th century, Daimaru set up the flower mirror to commemorate the department store’s 300th anniversary. The interactive display is viewable at Daimaru’s Tokyo and Kyoto branches until the end of March.
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)
