Street Theater

Tucked in a row of clothiers, the Ferrari Store has to conjure the experience of zipping around in a sports car for window shoppers on foot. Customers browsing its clothes and accessories can’t exactly go out for a spin—no matter how road-ready the race car on display looks. For the 2013 Regent Street Windows Project, Gensler joined forces with artist George Singer and event company Icon to transform the store’s four windows with an installation that captured the adrenaline rush of driving one of Ferrari’s powerful sports cars.

Two oversize paper maquettes of a heart and brain pulsed with light in time with video screens showing blood vessels pumping and neurons firing. Passersby turned their heads as sounds of thumping heartbeats and crackling pulses reached their ears, thanks to an installation trick that turned the windows into makeshift speakers. “The sound caught people’s attention,” says Gensler’s Jon Tollit. “Once they realized that something was going on in the windows, they started to work together to get a real engagement going.”