Veterans’ tribute snugs displays in poignant granite slab

December 7, 2010 by Dave Haynes

This is pretty cool – a digital display embedded in a granite slab, as part of a memorial piece.

The recently-unveiled Veterans Memorial at Lansing Community College in Michigan has 15 Christie MicroTiles snugged into a granite slab to honor and recognize local Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service recipients from the armed forces, spanning World War I to Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The director of purchasing and two Board of Trustee members are military veterans and they wanted a video display to honor our veterans,” said Paul Price, director of media services for the college, in a release. “They took the idea to the college president – who is both a history and technology buff – and it all came together very quickly.”

“It was a very clean installation,” said John Young, sales representative for Roscor Media & Information Technologies, project integrator. “We were in and out within seven hours. However, the small opening in the granite wall where the MicroTiles are installed is a tight fit. We assembled the MicroTiles on a shelf and then simply slid the MicroTiles wall into the space provided. With the thick steel liner inside the opening, we had perhaps one-half inch of clearance all around. Because it is so tight, it looks gorgeous. What you end up with is a beautiful granite structure with the beautiful Christie MicroTiles inside. It is perfect.”

High ambient light in the spacious atrium left both Young and Price uneasy – at first. “At three stories, the atrium is very big and you have both natural and artificial light,” said Young. “We were initially concerned about the lighting but as it turns out, we didn’t have to worry because the MicroTiles display at such a high brightness.”

This is interesting for a few reasons:

1 – It’s Dec. 7 – Pearl Harbor happened 69 years ago today.

2 – The Tiles have the kind of visual pop that can deal with atrium lighting.

3 – It would be tough to put pretty much any other display tech in a granite slab like that because of heating, ventilation and service access issues, unless that back was opened up. The tiles (disclosure: I do writing here and there for Christie) service from the front and run cool.

4 – No bezel. I think a bezel on this would look like hell.

Nice (and a great tribute).