Interactive Community Walls foster connection among cyclists in Specialized’s flagship stores.
In keeping with its motto, to “Innovate or Die,” Specialized Bicycle Components is expanding into brick and mortar. Specialized worked closely with Patten Studio to create a custom interactive experience for its new flagship stores in Chicago, Atlanta, and Bentonville: the Community Wall. Together, Patten Studio and Specialized conceived and developed the Community Wall concept to help forge a stronger bond between local riders and the Specialized brand.
The Community Wall is a touch-interactive heatmap of local cycling culture in Chicago, Atlanta, and Bentonville. By browsing the Community Wall, riders visiting a Specialized flagship can discover new trails and destinations listed as Staff Picks. Colorful trail descriptions help riders glean bits of insider knowledge pertaining to the trails and their nearby attractions.
The Community Wall is populated by photos uploaded by riders visiting the flagships. Photos are “pinned” to the map using their embedded geolocation metadata. Anyone who wants to can upload their photos to the Community Wall, with the goal being for the installation to serve and reflect each City’s cycling community.
Because the Community Wall is composed of engraved modular panels overlaid with projected interactive content, the installation is highly versatile. Both physical and digital content can be removed, re-imagined, and refreshed seasonally so that visitors are always experiencing something new.
For the Chicago Hub, Patten Studio also transformed the store’s Reveal Room into an immersive, aural chamber that captures the sonic experience of riding a Specialized bicycle. Embedded speakers in the floor and walls create a 360° audio-mapped environment. The whir of the bicycle’s freehub and the sound of its tire treads rolling over terrain come from below. The sound of wind is ear-level. Atmospheric sounds, like bird song, track backward along the walls, creating an aural illusion of forward motion. As Specialized debuts new bicycles seasonally, the Reveal Room’s soundtrack changes to match the featured bicycle on display.
The Chicago Community Wall and Reveal Room debuted with the opening of Specialized’s Chicago Hub in Spring of 2022, followed by the Bentonville Community Wall in the Fall of 2022, and the Atlanta Community Wall in the Spring of 2023. Local and visiting cyclists flock to Specialized’s brick and mortar locations for an experience markedly different from any bicycle shop they have encountered before—one that celebrates their participation in the sport and highlights their membership in a vibrant subculture built around a shared love of cycling.