IT’S FUNNY how this not-so-green interactive kiosk was born out of a need for Ricoh USA Inc. to promote their green initiatives. OK, to be fair, some parts of this design could be considered green.
The Backstory
Ricoh has an aggressive corporate responsibility and environmental sustainability program. So it comes as no surprise that they would want to tout these honorable causes. Ricoh begins to search for an interactive kiosk to place in their showrooms and use at trade shows. The environmental folks are chomping at the bit to create interactive content highlighting the program. Add to that mix the fact that back in early 2001 interactive display technology was in its infancy and quickly becoming the rage. Consequently Ricoh decides to invest in some swanky new interactive kiosks. Finally the marketing team rolls out the new kiosks at a huge trade event. To Ricoh’s dismay, every other company out there had purchased the exact same off-the-shelf interactive kiosks. Shortly thereafter I receive the call.
The Wish List
The environmental corporate arm of Ricoh tasks me with creating a unique interactive kiosk for their exclusive use. Several of the must haves are a touch screen, track pad, good quality sound, a locking keyboard drawer and a small CPU. I am to incorporate all of these elements into an ergonomic and user friendly design.
The Solution
Our material palette was inherited from a project I had previously developed for Ricoh. The kiosks are a mix of stainless steel, gray metallic lacquer and natural maple. The color rendering on the right (above on a mobile device) is one of the early development versions of the kiosk.
The many complex shapes prompted the use of solid CAD/CAM modeling software. Therefore the extensive use of CNC manufacturing equipment was possible. We were able to fabricate most of the kiosk parts directly from our 3D computer model. The project represents an interesting marriage of machine made and hand made. [9/2001]
