TAKING IT TO THE BANK

150th anniversary digital makeover for HSBC building

The HSBC Headquarters Building in Hong Kong – Norman Foster’s remarkable machine-like structure — has had a lighting and media wall upgrade to mark the bank’s 150th anniversary. Designed by Illumination Physics out of its Hong Kong office, three powerful media walls were required for the upgrade. The two big provisos for the design was for it to invisible during the day (this is an iconic piece of architecture, after all), and for the media wall content to be legible from both a ‘close’ distance of 100 metres and from the opposite side of Victoria Harbour 2-3 kilometres away.

The system integrates into the glass facades between the refuge floors. The height of the glazed zones varies between five to seven floors. Three zones were chosen, producing three large media walls which range from 880sqm to 1100sqm. Illumination Physics developed a custom version of its ‘X-Wall’ Media Strip, which was designed to be applied to the inside of a glass facade. The product is only 16mm wide and 11mm deep and when installed at 200mm centres, the transparency from within the building remained at 95% and yet from the outside it is all but invisible.

The horizontal and vertical pitch were optimised to achieve desired results from both viewing distances. At a 100-150m vantage point the resolution is optimised to suit the panel sizes of the glass wall.  The most popular views of the bank are farther away where the resolution is barely detectable. From across the harbour the display reads as if it were solid; such is the effect of pixel halation with distance.

The three media walls can be used as one or as three separate but synchronised images from Coolux Pandoras Box media servers. Importantly, the façade lighting which surrounds the screens has also been synchronised with the video content and it was this mix of the two mediums that provided the challenge.

CONTENT KING

Content would be the key. The exoskeleton is comprised of a series of horizontal and vertical lines, braced with diagonal trusses at six levels on the building. This creates triangles and when illuminated at night the three-sided forms are even more prominent. They are the signature of the building. The media walls are able to connect to the exoskeleton which is vital for when video messages and programs are not running. During these times, the media walls act as lighting devices, enlarging the effect of the architectural lighting and the form of the building by producing a media metaphor for it.

Special content was produced which created an echo of the façade lighting effects. Triangular animations and kaleidoscopic patterns provide a synergy with the lighting as the lighting ‘reacts’ to the content on the media walls. Conveniently, triangles comprise the HSBC logo so there is useful branding in these integrated combinations. The logo theme has become enlarged and reflected by the way the entire building is illuminated at night.

SMARTPHONE CONTENT

The last design initiative to complete the new displays was a device not physically attached to the building at all. The Illumination Physics control equipment sends a feed to a new smartphone application enabling views of the content being displayed in the palm of your hand wherever you are. Many tens of thousands of people view the HSBC building from Kowloon every night. With the HSBC App, you can combine a spectacular view of the displays across the harbour whilst simultaneously being able to see the finer detail of the more complex video displays in real time on their phone.

The last task was to restore the nightly display for the Hong Kong Tourism Commission’s Guinness book of world records city-wide light and sound show. HSBC has been one of the strongest performers since 2003, faultlessly participating in ‘A Symphony of Lights’ every night, 365 days a year. There are now 47 participating buildings and it became illumination Physics’ ambition to use all of the new façade lighting and media wall capabilities to take HSBC’s contribution to a new level. Lighting and, for the first time, media content have been combined to create a greater spectacle by displaying more meaningful images which relate to Hong Kong itself. This combination has further enhanced what is already a remarkable skyline.

Illumination Physics: (03) 9455 0761 or www.illuminationphysics.com

Show Technology (Coolux): (02) 9748 1122 or www.showtech.com.au