DB Infobox

Rail projects are big, slow and mostly invisible to the people they affect. Deutsche Bahn needed a way to explain what is being built and why, on site, to passers-by, neighbours and school classes, and it had to work for two years without a technician standing next to it. Slides and touchscreens were the obvious answer. We wanted people to touch the real thing.

The Infobox is a container fitted out as a physical exhibition. Every exhibit is its own small machine: train-telephone installations visitors pick up to hear the story, a rotatable bridge mechanism that shows how the structure moves, and control logic spread across eight micro-computers so no single failure takes the whole box down.

That meant real R&D rather than off-the-shelf AV: 600+ soldered connections, custom wiring harnesses, enclosures designed for daily public use, and software that boots into the exhibit unattended every morning. 1337.57UD10 handled concept, design, fabrication and on-site production as one team, which is the only way a build like this stays consistent.

An exhibition that runs for two years is judged on its worst day, not its opening. Hardware maintenance was part of the scope from the start: serviceable modules, spare parts on hand and an installation designed to be fixed on site.

• 2022–24 on public display for Deutsche Bahn
• Interactive installation, hardware and maintenance from one studio
• A repeatable approach for making critical infrastructure tangible, see also our Interactive Container for DET

Full project page at 1337studio.org ↗, our immersive R&D brand.