Kiboworks Chanel Ginza

Chanel Ginza

• Category

  Media Facade

• Completion

  2004

• Architect

  Peter Marino Architect | NY

• Lighting Designer

  Tanteri + Associates | NY

• Credits

  SGF Associate Inc | NY

• Awards

  IALD special citation for technical integration
  of facade and aestheric sensitivity to brand image

Transforming the building façade into a giant video wall
required more than 700,000 white LEDs from Nichia in 1 ,870 LED tubes
embedded within its skin. These tubes create more than 1 8,000 pixels
(96 x 1 88) of animation running at 30 frames per second. Custom software
developed for the project enabled individual addressing and control
of each 20cm. x 20cm. pixel.

The design team, led by Peter Marino + Associates Architects, envisaged
a 10-story-high media wall, flashing messages and patterns by means
of an LED system. Working with Matthew Tanteri, principal of New York
City’s Tanteri + Associates, Marino had created boutiques for Chanel
around the world, incorporating innovative lighting schemes such as
pixilated LED walls. For the Ginza location, Marino hoped to wrap
the building in a high-tech version of the fashion house’s signature
tweed.

The control system is then integrated into the Internet, enabling
remote technical support from CreativeLumen, user remote control of
system functions, remote software updates and offsite system status
updates, fault detection and diagnosis.

The LED system is based on large arrays of low powered LEDs driven
by constant current and individually controlled by on board microprocessors.
This approached implemented soon after 2000, is the precursor to today’s
smart LED drivers. The driver technology provides feedback to the
control system regarding LED brightness and power consumption. The
first implementation of variable and randomized pulse width brightness
control in addition to extensive flexibility to support gamma correction
and increased contrast.

KiboWorks Stream serial protocol and software technology far exceeds
the capacity of DMX and provides the customer with an infrastructure
easily maintaned with off the shelf and significally cheaper hardware
than DMX.