Kalevala stories where they happened

Footprints of the Kalevala · PIKES

PIKES needed a Karelian and Kalevala WebAR trail through the Nurmes area. We won the public tender, then delivered five connected experiences along the route, opened from QR points on laser-cut metal signs, in Finnish and English.

Client: PIKES (Pielinen-Karelia Development Center)
Sector: Culture
Year: 2025
Service: Culture, tourism & place-based WebAR
Delivery: Browser · QR

Kantele. Väinämöinen’s pike-jaw harp with mullein flowers, modelled in-house.

Footprints of the Kalevala · PIKES · case reel

01 · Problem

Stories where they happened

Funded brief: take visitors through nature with cultural and mythological content layered on. Bilingual. No-app. Durable enough to keep running for years.

Karelian smoke sauna. Log-joint construction modelled stop by stop.

02 · Approach

Five stops, one route, two languages

We researched the cultural content, wrote the script, produced the bilingual audio, designed the AR target signs and the user interface, built most of the 3D in-house, and shipped a shared AR-window style across all five stops where part of each scene sits inside the target image and part extends out of it.

Saunatonttu. The sauna elf summoned inside a Karelian smoke sauna.

03 · Outcome

A trail that opens from a QR

Five connected experiences along one route, opened from a QR.
Visitors play the kantele, summon the sauna elf, see Karelian log joints exploded apart.
Bilingual delivery without doubling the content load.

/Inputs we worked from

Funded brief
Local research material
Route plan

/Audiences

Tourists
Local visitors
Funder

/Service used

Culture, tourism & place-based WebAR

Make place-based stories walkable, visible, and memorable. Designed for the real signage, languages, and maintenance.

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Worth knowing before you write a brief

AppsFlyer's 2025 benchmark across 28 billion installs puts Day-1 retention at around 25%. AR apps sit below that floor, because every reviewer is a single-use case, not a habit. WebAR removes the funnel. The link that opened the experience the first time still opens it the second.

Source: AppsFlyer 2025 · Adjust 2026

Read what installs cost an AR campaign

Rework runs around 12% of a typical construction budget. Peer-reviewed BIM studies in 2025 report that putting an optimised 3D model in front of stakeholders before the first pour prevents at least a third of that, and as much as half on projects that share the model early. One Asian rail case caught 3,000 design clashes and shaved 12% off construction cost on its own.

Source: Nature Sci Rep 2025 · Springer Discover Materials 2025

Read what 3D pre-viz prevents that drawings do not

Shopify's own data, drawn from millions of stores. The 65% sits next to a 94% conversion lift on stores that add any 3D content, and a 40% drop in returns when AR closes the imagination gap. The mechanism carries from product pages to construction, museums, and brand work.

Source: Shopify · The ROI on AR

Read why the imagination gap is not just retail's problem

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