Published on: March 19, 2009

Urban Alliance is a Dutch design studio specialized in media objects in which state of the art media techniques are integrated in architecture and design. Their project  Cruquis Landmark is a thirty meters high LED three-dimensional screen.

Here is what Urban Alliance said about their LED Landmark Cruquius:

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A couple of years ago UA partner Remco Wilcke had built a media object in Doetinchem called the D-Tower (designed by NOX), and came into contact with a college buddy, who in turn asked him to help design and build the landmark in Cruquius, which was designed by the architects of VVKH. It was during that time that Urban Alliance started to take shape and was willing to provide content for the Landmark.

The finished landmark is a three-dimensional screen about thirty meters in height, which allows us to project images to enhance the atmosphere, promote the marketing of the area and generally be a positive influence on the shopping experience.

The skin is made out of a hundred uniquely shaped panels made out of fibreglass and polyester, each coming out of a specific mould with preformed flanges. It’s commonly used in the construction of ships. Every part arrived at the site ready to be assembled. The material is also advantageous because not only does it let light through, it also blurs the pixel into a bigger smudge, resulting in better picture quality. There are five thousand five hundred pixels made out of six coloured LEDs each. By monitoring and re-evaluating the project throughout the whole process, Urban Alliance managed to work everything out more or less like we set out to do without too much trouble.”

UA not only supervised the construction but also developed the content for the object that will fit the specific shape of the object and will stay involved with the Landmark afterwards as well. Right now UA provided some basic content. The content is shown in themed segments that are fifteen minutes long, followed by an animated bumper, after which another fifteen minutes of animation are shown. The animations start out very calm and quiet but finally get out of hand. There’s one which starts out as a campfire on the bottom of the screen but grows into this blaze that engulfs the tower. The idea is that UA will keep producing and delivering new content constantly, making sure that it stays fresh. UA intends to keep developing material to ensure the constant, systematic supply of content. If the content would just stay the same, it would defeat the whole purpose of building the landmark in the first place.

Note of the editor:

Please note the copyright of these images is retained by Urban Alliance.    Use of those images is subject to them being used for this article only.  Publication of any image in any form or fashion must include a credit for Urban Alliance.