If you’ve ever seen the Casino Lugano by day, you wouldn’t recognize it at night. When sun goes down the large grey block of marble is turned into a colorful eye-catcher attracting passers-by by its color changes and light effects. More than 45.000 red, green and blue Power TOPLEDs from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors bathe the east façade in light and color. In combination with the more than 1.000 swiveling marble panels of the façade fascinating light effects can be produced. Besides the illumination in one single color is also possible. There are no limits for the creation of light effects.

The additive mixture of the red, green and blue light allows color changes and the illumination in any color. Due to the digital control of each LED either the whole façade or only a sub area can be illuminated. The Power TOPLEDs are installed at all six floors and run horizontally over the whole lengths of the east façade. The LEDs are mounted in modules covered with a watertight glass tube, which ensures homogeneous color mixture.

via: osram-os.com

For the ILUMA building in Singapore Realities United created a light and media facade, which had to be effective both during day and night. The project is part of a new development (Urban Entertainment Center) designed by WOHA architects.
In various ways this concept blurs boundaries as it actively merges the concept of a media screen with an ornamental architectural screen filtering air and light and as it blends abstract futuristic shapes with a 1970’s Vegas style.

The „screen“ facade is formed by a tessellated pattern made up by physical plastic bodies. A regular matrix of fluorescent lamps is superimposed onto (into) this idiosyncratic physical structure. That produces a display screen, which however is vividly distorted by the strong geometry of the individual light fixture and which is peppered by the regular perforations of the physical screen as well as by variations in the arrangements of the light fixture objects.
By intention a complex and ambivalent impression.

On one side there is the impression of an ultra large media screen, which is not yet fully there. It appears to be still deep frozen under a surface of ice, cracking and thawing. A herald of a fundamental change of architecture, which is about to transform from a static to a dynamic art.

On the other side the individual blinking crystals carry a strong reminiscence to the look of the “modern city” of the 20thThe idea of “entertainment” linked to flashing neon signs and excessive baroque carpets of light bulbs with its on-off moving aesthetic. Because there will be change. Being the first development inside the new officially promoted Bugis night life area of Singapore the project anticipates the arrival of several competitors over the next 15 years. Instead of starting a race in latest tech LED glamour, which the project would soon loose to its younger competitors the project concentrates on establishing a superb size and lighting power in combination with a striking visual appearance thereby building the claim of becoming the areas first and lasting land mark.

via: realities-united.de

via: e-architect.co.uk, giselbrecht.at

The Grand Casino in Basle, Switzerland, looks like a glowing red cube after the sun has gone down and welcomes the nocturnal visitors. Its flaming red façade shines from far as a highlight in the otherwise deserted industrial zone. During nighttimes flames seem to be dancing over the glass façade of the Airport Casino. This effect is reinforced by the illumination of the façade from roof and floor level and the rough surface of the isolation. But suddenly the façade bursts into life. Waves of red light are chasing over the surface and signal that the jackpot has been hit. The digital control of the single LEDs allows displaying various light effects at special occasions.

140 000 pieces of Power TOPLEDs color the façade in a very saturated intense red light. The LEDs are concealed in rails between glass and isolation at floor and roof level, to ensure homogeneous illumination even under very flat viewing angle. Optics were used to focus the light in such a way, that it illuminates half of the height of the façade. Power TOPLEDs now provide such an intense light that they can illuminate even large areas, such as this 20 m high façade. Designed by architects Burckhardt & Partner the whole façade of the Airport Casino Basle is comprised of two layers: the red plastered isolation, which is encased with red printed glass at a distance of 80 mm.

via:osram-os.com, ims-ag.ch, burckhardtpartner.ch

AAamp (architectural advertising amplifier) artistic low resolution media facade installation augmenting a commercial LED billboard. In close cooperation with WOHA architects for the A.AMP project a façade design was developed, which combines the conventional functionality of an office glass façade (and a decent daytime appearance) with a spectacular dynamic communication format at nighttime.

realities:united’s conception proposes the construction of an “Architectural Advertising Amplifier” (A.Amp.). A very large and very large scaled matrix of over 500 full color LED light units supplements and surrounds a given high-end LED screen displaying commercials. As the daytime office use slowly fades out the windows of any evacuated office cells are covered by computer controlled blinds transforming the outer surface of the building step-by-step into a large screen display. The image is generated by individual LED light “projectors” which are placed behind the curtain wall glass facade along Selegie Road and which project back against the inner façade of the building.

Specialized software is used to analyze and transform the moving images on the commercial LED billboard into a visual color-echo displayed on the surrounding low resolution A.AMP screen installation in real time. Although the resolution of the installation is rather low the displayed abstract images maintain a good legibility. The human brain manages to recognize the color patterns as part/repetition of the moving images displayed on the embedded LED high end screen. (-> compare C4 project, Cordoba) In this way the low resolution media installation works as a visual amplifier augmenting the commercial content over the building’s facade and reaching a scale which is relevant to the architecture as well as to its urban context. A unique type of an urban landmark effective both on Selegie Road as well as on Middle Road. The facade will always be a layered collage of the digital images produced by A.AMP and of “material” architectural elements. Offices still in use will punctuate the digital image here and there with their static light windows. This way the dynamic exchange between material and media becomes a persistent plot: sometimes struggle, sometimes a dance. That way the building is not covered and hidden by the installation but the architecture itself is transformed to become a carrier of digital information.

via: realities-united.de, woha-architects.com

Das Buch führt in die Terminologie der Medienarchitektur ein und erläutert im ersten Teil die Geschichte der Medienfassaden anhand weltberühmter Beispiele wie Times Square, New York, oder Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Im Hauptteil werden über 30 internationale und zeitgenössische Medienfassaden präsentiert, klassifiziert in sieben verschiedene technische Kategorien: Projektions- und, Rückprojektionsfassaden, Window Raster Animation, Displayfassaden, Leuchtmittelfassaden, mechanische sowie Voxelfassaden. Jede dieser Kategorien wird ausführlich erläutert und anhand von Fotos und Plänen veranschaulicht. Die Projektbeispiele liefern außerdem wichtige technische Daten und Details.
Eine Charakterisierung der Medienfassaden sowie eine Darstellung, mit welchen Inhalten sie bespielt werden können, schließen das Buch ab.

M. Hank Häusler, Dr.Ing., studierte Architektur in Japan, den Niederlanden und Deutschland, und promovierte 2007 an der RMIT School of Architecture in Melbourne, Australien. Sein Beratungsbüro City Lights Architecture Store/CLA-Store widmet sich Forschungsprojekten ebenso wie berufspraktischen Fragen.

Media Facades: History, Technology, Content

Located just to the north of Oxford Street and adjacent to Selfridges, Como is delivering the striking new headquarters for clothing retailer Reiss. The building has been constructed with a concrete frame on a new basement and has a retained brickwork façade on one elevation. Reiss’ flagship store takes two floors of high quality retail space while head office is located in the three upper floors.

This limited competition to design the new headquarters of the fashion house Reiss was won with a provocative idea about representation and display. The building would need to function as an icon for the Reiss brand, on a site in Barrett Street directly overlooked by the hordes of shoppers that pass down Oxford Street. The headquarters would also accommodate a vertical sandwich of different functions with the flagship Reiss store on the first two floors, and above it three storeys of offices, cutting rooms and design studios.
The façade consists of a double-glazed glass layer lying behind an acrylic rain-screen. The acrylic is assembled in panels with periodic openings inducing a stack effect to cool this south-facing glazed façade. The acrylic layer has a complex machined profile – solid panels of acrylic are cut away by large vertical gauges of varying width and depth, within which are etched even finer vertical striations. The abstract effect is similar to that of a bar code but when viewed obliquely takes on the shimmering quality of a sheet of silk. The effect changes at night when the acrylic is edge-lit giving it the capacity to vary the building’s appearance.

via:ims-ag.ch, macegroup.com,
squireandpartners.com