A twelve-thousand-year story.One piece of software.
Urfa Digital History and Culture Island
We spread the story that runs from Göbeklitepe to today across thirteen experience points, then brought all of them under a single system.
We turned a city's memory into a system that runs.
The Governorship of Şanlıurfa wanted the twelve-thousand-year story of Urfa to live on a digital island. eCloud took on the whole software architecture: the design, development and integration of thirteen experience points, the interaction software, the central management system and the kiosk applications. The video and animation work ran with our team as well.
For the visitor the result is a single flow: one uninterrupted story from the moment they step onto the island until they leave. Everything that keeps that flow together is software.
We wrote a mind for an island.
Thirteen separate experiences. One intelligence holding all of them at once.
In a place like this the hard part is not making the pieces work. The hard part is making all of them work at the same time, in the same rhythm, with nobody intervening.
Every point on the island speaks a different language: some read touch, some distance, some the movement of a body. We wrote a shared language on top of them. The island now opens itself in the morning, keeps itself in step through the day, and recovers on its own when something slips.
No technical team on site. One tablet is enough.
Thirteen experience points.
The island's official order of visit. The area names and descriptions are taken verbatim from the welcome application running on site.
Opening Screen
The round LED screen on the right-hand wall as you come down the stairs, facing the seating area: the island's opening show.
Urfa in the Time Tunnel
Thirteen eras, from the Neolithic to the Republic, come alive in turn on a vast curved LED wall and the ring above.
Interactive Screen
Urfa's living heritage: the gazelle, the bald ibis and the region's native animals respond to the movement of your hand.
Digital Show Hall
Fire, water and light wrap all four walls; in image and sound, Urfa's story turns around you.
Digital Urfa Tour from the Sky
A bird's-eye journey over Urfa on a vast curved screen.
Visual Feast Screen
Urfa's places appear in particles of light, dissolve and take shape again.
Stone Mirror
Wipe away the sand covering the screen with your finger and uncover Urfa's artefacts and places beneath.
Urfa City Centre Points of Visit
On the touch map: the city centre's mosques, inns, bazaars and historic houses, each with photographs, information and a QR code.
Urfa Districts Points of Visit
In the districts section of the same map: ancient sites and historic buildings from Göbeklitepe to Harran, from Halfeti to Siverek.
Balıklıgöl Plateau Points of Visit
In the third section of the map: the complexes of the Balıklıgöl Plateau, Urfa Castle and the plateau's new points of visit.
Gastronomy and Folk Dances in Urfa
A digital show on two touch screens: Urfa's local flavours from lebeni to hırtlevik, and its folk dances from Kımıl to Dinge.
Hologram Show
Artefacts appear in mid-air: a three-dimensional encounter with Urfa's heritage.
Interactive Wall
The wide LED wall beside the Time Tunnel, facing the corridor: touch the screen and watch your touch spread as light and particles.
The engineering beneath the experience.
The visitor sees none of it. Without all of it, nothing runs.
A shared language
Surfaces, sensors and applications from different makers meet under one system. The protocol we wrote for the island puts all of them in the same sentence.
An autonomous island
Starting up, staying in step and recovering are the system's own work. In daily operation, human intervention is the exception, not the rule.
Interaction in the moment
Human movement, read by depth cameras and radar sensors, becomes visual experience with no delay. Software closes the distance in between.
Twelve projections, one frame
In the Digital Show Hall twelve separate projections stand as a single image. What makes that possible is frame-by-frame coordination.
Management in one touch
Staff with no technical background run the whole island from a single tablet screen. The complexity stays behind the interface.
Content in three languages
The kiosk applications run in Turkish, English and Arabic.
It stays with you after the visit
Recipe and content pages opened by QR carry the experience beyond the island.
Moments from the island.
All of them from the project's own footage.
See the island.
The whole project, in eighty-three seconds.
Our thanks to the Governorship of Şanlıurfa, who made this island possible.
Do you have a project that brings cultural heritage together with technology?
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