Projects: Hy-Vee’s W. Des Moines History Pavilion

February 14, 2017 by Dave Haynes

The midwest US, employee-owned grocer Hy-Vee has opened a conference and event center in its West Des Moines, Iowa head office that goes very big on a blend of digital and print graphics.

The company turned the building’s lobby into an 11,000-square-foot history pavilion and hired Dimensional Innovations, a Kansas-based architecture and design firm, to design and fabricate the space.

“Hy-Vee’s Dwight Vredenburg History Pavilion really is a show-stopping display of artifacts, advertisements and photographs from Hy-Vee’s nearly nine decade history,” says JC Hendricks, Vice President and Creative Director for the firm. “Using Hy-Vee’s bright color palette and some creative design ideas, we designed a space that encourages guests to walk around and learn about the company in an exciting, novel way.”

The big digital feature is a set of six round support columns that are wrapped, in part, by NanoLumens Nixel Series LED displays – which are flexible enough to nicely go around a right 4-foot diameter column.

“We wanted to use every available space to capture people’s attention, and the NanoLumens Nixel Series™ displays were the absolute best way to utilize the column space,” Hendricks says. “The plan was originally to outfit four of the columns with displays, but when we showed Hy-Vee a mockup of the NanoLumens 360-degree display, they were blown away and immediately decided to put them on all six columns.”

The 5mm pixel pitch displays run a two-hour loop of commercials and videos from the company’s past, with each column staggering the timing so visitors get to see different videos as they walk around the room. This way, guests can see more of the full two-hour video than if it were timed the same on every display. The displays are 2 feet tall and positioned 8 feet off the ground.

As visitors tour the lobby, says a press release, they are taken on a decade-by-decade journey through the company’s history. Each decade has its own section of wall complete with an LCD screen to display images of people and events during that period, and glass display cases featuring artifacts, books and photos.

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