Charlotte Office Block Lights Up Vast 4K, Data-Driven LED Lobby Wall
November 21, 2019 by Dave Haynes
This is a 64 foot wide by 36 foot tall LED wall that fills the feature wall of the lobby of the Legacy Union building in Charlotte, NC – which runs algorithmic, experiential digital artwork, bolstered by custom sound.
The building is part of a mixed use commercial development downtown, near the NFL stadium. The NanoLumens screen is touted as the largest native 4K LED display ever installed.
The content is described as deriving from a generative algorithm that “dictates how each pixel interacts with what surrounds it, leading colors to bend and blend around each other like a continuous weather radar, never showing the same visual twice.”
The AV solutions firm Cenero worked with the Second Story interactive design studio to develop the custom artwork, and handle content management services.
PR suggests the screens also runs visuals about the city of Charlotte, from the building’s main tenant, Bank of America.
This is another high profile example of how commercial property owners and the anchor tenants of big office properties have shifted from adding digital signage to a lobby to making digital signage on a grand scale an architectural design decision.
This is not ‘Put in the physical structure and finishes of a lobby and then sort out how to “decorate” it.’ It is making the display technology integral to the building’s design and welcome experience.
The project is also interesting because it is a physical manifestation of the size of screen needed to do native 4K visuals. The pixel pitch is on this NanoLumens’ LED is 4.7mm, but to get enough light pixels to add up to 3,840 wide by 2,160 pixels tall, it takes a whole bunch of 4.7mm LED cabinets or modules in an array to get to 4K.
The finer the pitch, the smaller the physical wall, but even the finest pitch LEDs need a pretty big footprint to realize 4K.
That is crazy beautiful. Well done Second Story.