Macy´s Union Square
-
Category
Bespoke Display Design
-
Completion
2006
-
Lighting Design
Lightswitch | New York
-
Project Coordination
Numinus
KiboWorks partnered with Lightswitch and Numinus to create a spectacular
LED holiday display for Macy's Union Square store in San Francisco.
The store has five floors with six windows on each floor. Macys wanted
to create a large creative backdrop to their Christmas tree located
outside the store, but with no time or ability to hang a screen in
the outside of the façade and also needing to allow light into
the building in the day time. Kiboworks came up with a solution that
could easily be installed within a short timescale and at the same
time allow the maximum light in to the building in daytime working
hours.
The windows were illuminated with thin dynamic addressable RGB strips
mounted around the windows and stretched spandex was used to cover
the windows and act as a screen. A total of 34 RGB strips were used
in each window. The system used the first generation control technology
to take data from an Ethernet connection and convert it into RS485
data for the RGB strips.
There is one KiboNode (control unit) per floor, feeding all six windows
on that floor Despite a challenging production schedule and an electrical
union strike, success was achieved-and the magnificent, custom-designed
LED lighting display was designed, installed and ready to dazzle in
just one month.