An interactive pavilion for the Venice Biennale

Togetherness / Togetherless. A web app for the Croatian Pavilion at the 17th Architecture Biennale (2021): visitors build their own compositions from objects in the exhibition and share them.

Open site Try the playground Draft — the client is still confirming the text

togetherness-togetherless.com

Architecture Biennale, 2021: 17.Architecture Biennale, 2021
in the browser, nothing to install: 100 %in the browser, nothing to install
worked out to the last detail: UIworked out to the last detail

The client and the challenge

The Croatian Pavilion “Togetherness / Togetherless” at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice also needed a digital space where visitors take part instead of only looking. The designers came up with the idea; it had to become an app that runs in the browser and behaves like a tool rather than a website.

The solution

Following the designers’ idea and design, we built the whole web app. In the playground, visitors pick objects from the exhibition, drag, rotate and resize them and build a composition of their own. The finished composition is exported as an image and shared, on Instagram for example. Around the app sit the pavilion pages: statement, team, gallery and video.

The result

The app was part of the pavilion during the 2021 Biennale, and the site and the playground still run on our hosting today.

Under the hood

Drag, rotate, resize

The canvas runs on Fabric.js, a framework for 2D object manipulation, wired to our own script that handles picking objects, composing and the export. Every object can be moved, rotated and scaled up or down directly, with no menus or dialogs. That directness is what makes the app behave like a tool.

A composition as an image

Whatever the visitor builds on the canvas is exported as a finished image, ready to share. Sharing was central to the idea: the pavilion spreads through visitors’ compositions.

Interface design

Every step of the interface follows the design, from picking objects to the export, on a custom theme with a custom scroll done in pure CSS, no JavaScript. The video above shows the whole flow as a visitor sees it.

Installs like an app

A custom service worker is registered through the web app manifest, so the playground can be added to the home screen and opens as a standalone app.

More references

All references →

vizkultura.hr

HostingVizkultura

Half a million images that no longer go missing

A visual culture portal with one of the largest media libraries in the region: from upload problems, through R2, to Backblaze B2 and AVIF.

PageSpeed 94 (mobile)
Core Web Vitals: passed
No image overwrites another any more

Draft — the client is still confirming the text

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deltalab.hr

Web studioHostingDeltalab

Big galleries and a menu that never overlaps

An urban studio whose project galleries need to be sharp and fast, with a menu that is different every time.

PageSpeed 92 (mobile)
Galleries in AVIF
A menu with no overlaps

Draft — the client is still confirming the text

Read the story

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