There are many displays out there that bring the wow factor to public spaces, but few can claim to have been built to the towering scale as Nanolumens’ display at the 10-acre Legacy Union mixed use development in Charlotte, North Carolina USA.
Located adjacent to the Bank of America stadium, Nanolumens developed a gigantic 64x36 feet 4K native display, dubbed “The eye of Charlotte” which uses unique visuals to bring a distinctive experience to the public space.
The piece was designed to pay tribute to Charlotte’s history and involved an intricate partnership between Nanolumens, systems integrator Cenero and interior architects LS3P.
Nanolumens has worked closely with Cenero in the past as Arch Nelson, regional sales manager, southeast US territory explained: “We’ve done a lot of other projects with Cenero, they brought me in two years prior to installation to meet the architect for the interiors, LS3P. Between the three companies, we helped design this display for the lobby.
“We’ve done a lot of big display projects, but the big ones we’ve done haven’t been as tall as this one. The display is 36 feet tall, it is massive. It's all about wow factor. It's all about art.”
The installation was handled by Cenero who became involved with the project through relationships with a local architect affiliate in the city of Charlotte, initially serving in a consultant role where Cenero made plans with napkin sketches, escalating involvement with the project by guiding stakeholders through the project selection process.
“If you do the maths, 16 sections of content, each section is 16 feet by nine feet and that's a pretty big mark in our industry.” - Arch Nelson, Nanolumens
After coordination efforts were completed, there was no formal bid or tender process requested.
Software developer Second Story was also involved with the project, developing the content for the display called “Unify” – a 4K visual art piece that never repeats the same content twice, creating a one-of-a-kind visual display that is distinctive from each moment to the next.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH SECOND STORY ABOUT THE UNIFY PROJECT HERE
Nelson: “It’s one of the largest native 4K indoors displays in the world, if not the largest. The scale was originally presented to them because of the way they wanted to use it. At times they want to run it as one big piece of content and at others, they want to be able to split it up to as many as 16 different pieces of content playing at once.
“If you do the maths, 16 sections of content, each section is 16 feet by nine feet and that's a pretty big mark in our industry.”
The display presents a 4K native image, allowing images shot in 4K to be received one to one in 4K if there is no dilution.
The project was not without its challenges as Nelson explained: We had to convince Bank of America, who is taking over partial control of the content creation for the display. We had to get them involved and teach their people how to create content and they have done so now. The content is split between artistically created content by Second Story and man-made content by Bank of America.
Cenero, the integrator on the project, also encountered troubles, being required to use three stories worth of scaffolding covered in a plastic tarp to maintain a clean installation area due to the lack of a dust free environment, with the floor subtrate preventing the use of a boom or piston lift.
Cenero is also responsible for the 24 hour monitoring of the AV systems on site, including the videowall. Cenero uses its own own constant connect managed service, in conjuntion with Nanolumens Aware software to remotely diagnose and access the display.
The building also features colour changing outdoor lights that highlight the display inside. Nelson: “They can change colour with the content, and they can change colours for certain events. If the Carolina Panthers play, their colours are blue and white so on Panthers’ night, the whole building is blue and white.
“On the fourth of July the lights are red, white and blue. It stands out like a beacon in town so we couldn’t be in a better building to gain more attention.”
Nelson has the final word: “Once you get that first display in, especially if it's a public place where people can go see it, and you can bring your customers to go and see it, it really opens people's eyes and once you have an anchor display in a town that town tends to take off.”