McLaren x Google Gemini — The Gemini Paddock 2.0

// services
Immersive Installation
Generative AI
Live Event
Projection-mapped helmets, generative LED worlds and Gemini-powered content pipelines for McLaren Racing's fan experience during British Grand Prix weekend.
A cinematic welcome to the Gemini Paddock
Launched at Truman Brewery during British Grand Prix weekend, The Gemini Paddock 2.0 connected McLaren's Formula 1 heritage — from the M2B to the 2026 MCL40 — with the future of AI-powered creativity. Working alongside our long-standing partners The Team and Creative Technology, Solarflare delivered the key immersive content moments across the space. It began in the Hall of Helmets: a cinematic entry gallery of animated helmet visuals, fan-created designs and a bespoke soundscape of crowd textures, commentator audio and rhythmic pulses — sequenced screen content and spatial sound building anticipation before guests moved deeper in.
The Living Livery — 28 generative worlds on LED
The most technically ambitious build: a custom interactive application, API-led AI content workflows and large-format LED playback, fused into one responsive environment. Fans chose environments and moods on a two-tablet interface; each selection triggered a Gemini-style thinking moment before launching AI-generated worlds across connected LED wall and floor. Behind it sat a full generative pipeline built on Google's Gemini API and Vertex AI — prompt structuring, environment variants and repeated generation passes producing more than 700 curated AI sequences, stitched and tested into 28 immersive environments, each a seamless 24-second loop composed as architectural media across both surfaces.
Turning a helmet into a stage
In the Head of Design activation, fans created their own McLaren-inspired helmet livery — and watched it come alive. We transformed a physical helmet into a responsive projection-mapped canvas with ambient sleep, Gemini-style loading, reveal and attract states, giving every interaction a sense of theatre. Across all three activations, the same principle held: fan input flowed through application logic, triggered the right content state and transformed the space in real time. Content, sound, interaction, AI workflows and installation design working as one system — McLaren heritage made participatory.