Bahrain’s F1 Track Wraps Famed Tower In 360-degree LED Rings
April 21, 2021 by Dave Haynes
Motor speedways have such an interesting business model – giant footprints and very expensive infrastructure for hosting a handful of events annually.
Consider this 360-degree LED installation on a building at the Formula 1 track in Bahrain, which has that one big race a year, and presumably a fraction of people passing through there the rest of a year.
I don’t quite get how the economics of that work, but then again, in that region there is no end to big money Wow Factor projects that you could never build a plausible ROI model around.
The 10-storey clubhouse tower at the race track has been encircled with direct view LED cabinets and lighting strips, in a project run by StandardVision, Woodroffe Bassett Design and integrator Spectrum Lighting.
With the challenge of creating a seamless, 360-degree, architecturally integrated media facade spanning seven unique floors, StandardVision designed and fabricated seven custom direct-view LED panels, with every panel type’s length tailored to each floor’s geometry. The modules’ razor thin vertical dimension also allows for a gradual decrease in display height, accentuating the existing structure of the tower while maintaining perfect sight-lines for audiences on the upper floors of the track.
Below each ring, video-controlled linear grazers of equally custom lengths were mounted on existing aluminum sunshade fins, creating a bespoke extension of the LED panels above with reflected illumination. A centralized DC power system provides much needed efficiency, performance and integration for the LED rings. Architectural show lighting was added to the rooftop canopies and a number of key areas.
To manage the entirety of the building’s 2.5 linear miles of media-lighting technology, StandardVision deployed its custom content management system SVRunner to control the wide variety of pre-defined and real-time broadcast needs, providing viewers with near instantaneous statistics from any angle. The resulting installation is a vivid celebration of the global motor sport, leveraging experiential design and future-forward branding to amplify public space and activate the iconic entertainment venue.
Pretty neat!
Great project.