Sea to Land: Buried Streams
Sarah Huet
OVERVIEW
The Problem
Airports are stressful by design. Environmental stressors and constant delays create anxiety for over 40% of travellers, yet most offer little to meaningfully fill that time. At YVR, despite a rich collection of Indigenous and BC-inspired artwork, nothing invites interaction, leaving a clear gap between the cultural foundation already in place and the experience travellers are craving.
The Solution
Introducing a multi-layered interactive experience that transforms waiting time into a calming and meaningful journey. Using AR-guided navigation, interactive installations, and a shared digital aquarium, travellers can follow, collect, and design virtual salmon. Each interaction unlocks immersive, educational content about British Columbia’s ecosystems and Indigenous culture.
The Impact
By combining wayfinding, education, and creative participation, it gives travellers a reason to move through the terminal with curiosity rather than anxiety. The collective aquarium transforms wait time into a small moment of shared making, leaving travellers with a meaningful connection to the land they’re passing through.
THE PRODUCT
Digital Aquarium
Description: Since the aquarium is most travellers’ first touchpoint, I created a demo video to show how it would look and how it sparks that initial moment of curiosity.
Buried Streams
Description: Buried Streams is one of 4 installations and sits in YVR’s international terminal expansion, where the architecture and ceiling art already reference land, sea, and Indigenous culture. The installation builds on that context, reflecting the human impact on Vancouver’s buried salmon streams.
Demo Video: In order to demonstrate how this installation would operate in that space, I created a demo video using Leonardo.AI.
Tangible model: To bring the technical side of the installation to life, I built a working Arduino model that lets people interact with it and discover how it functions firsthand.
