"Behind the Scenes: How an Interactive Media Facade Comes Together"
By Marius Rieg · · 2 min read
Summary: A media facade like PZ Nova is 20 percent technology and 80 percent dramaturgy. What matters most - sensors robust enough for public space, content that explains itself in three seconds, and an operating concept that keeps the wall feeling fresh every day.
In the heart of Pforzheim, since 2025, there's been a wall that looks back at you: PZ Nova, the interactive media facade for the Pforzheimer Zeitung newspaper. Whoever steps onto the sensor stone in front of it controls, with gestures, what happens on the large LED surface – from face-swap to a newspaper avatar to a New Year's countdown. In 2026 the project won the German Customer Award. This article shows how something like that comes together.
The idea: journalism you can walk into
The starting point was a question from the Pforzheimer Zeitung: how does a newspaper become experienceable in the cityscape again? Our answer: not with a screen that broadcasts, but with a surface that reacts. The difference sounds small but changes everything – passersby become players.
The technology: robust above all else
In the studio, almost any technology works. Different rules apply in public space:
- Sensors: a camera captures people on the sensor stone; gesture and motion recognition translate body movement into control input. Everything has to work in rain, backlight, and crowds.
- Realtime rendering: content is rendered live, not played back – that's the only way interaction feels immediate.
- Continuous operation: a facade never clocks out. Monitoring, remote updates, and failover are part of the design, not an afterthought.
The real work: dramaturgy
The hardest design question wasn't technical: what does the wall show at 8:12 a.m. on a Tuesday? Interactive installations live on content that explains itself in three seconds and delivers a sense of achievement after thirty. That's why PZ Nova is built as an app platform: experience the weather, quote of the day, seasonal specials like Halloween or the New Year's Eve countdown. New apps keep the facade fresh – the way a newspaper does.
What we learned
First: public space forgives no instruction manuals. Second: people interact when other people are interacting – the best advertisement for the wall is someone standing in front of it, laughing. Third: an installation isn't a project with an end date, it's a product with operations.
Conclusion
PZ Nova shows what happens when journalism, technology, and city life come together: communication you can walk into. For us at Luftschloss it's the reference project proving that interactive experiences work in public space – technically, editorially, and economically.