The furniture, music and lighting can be adjusted online in real-time and you can see how the customers react.

This pop-up café in Helsinki, Finland, features elements that can be remotely controlled in real-time online. It was built to demonstrate the importance of good design; to show that design affects everyone and that anyone can affect it.

Creative studio Perfect Fools and agency Hasan & Partners are the ones behind ‘Kauko‘ (Finnish for ‘remote control’), which at first may look like a normal café but has lighting, music, tables, chairs and more that can be controlled on a website. For example, an online visitor can choose to adjust the height of a chair and watch how the customer sitting on it reacts via multiple live-streaming cameras.

Kauko (currently located in Forum, Helsinki’s biggest mall) is part of a wider campaign to celebrate Helsinki as ‘World Design Capital 2012’. Its creators hope that it inspires new ideas about how to improve design and draws attention to its importance within everyday environments. You can watch the case study video below:

Kauko