The Challenge
Cocor Luxury Store, the newly built, lavish shopping center in Bucharest, Romania, offering brands such as Versace, Armani, and Gucci, won’t open until October 2009, but that didn’t stop them from advertising their presence to Bucharest citizens more than nine months beforehand.
Cocor Luxury Store is one of the oldest and best known department stores in downtown Bucharest. Cocor developers sought to upgrade both the interior and exterior of the existing building to reaffirm its position as a leading retail center. The store itself is a somewhat new concept: a department store with brand owners as tenants, standing behind the pledge to only house high-level, luxurious, multinational brands.
Cocor CEO, Dan Barbulescu, and Cocor Channel board members wanted the luxury store’s outdoor architecture and technology to reflect the prestige and status of the goods and services the tenants would sell. They desired to put Cocor Luxury Store in the league of Spectacular digital displays: New York’s Times Square, London’s Piccadilly Circus, and Bucharest’s Cocor MediaChannel.
Cocor wanted to create a spectacular advertising display system that would enable the luxury store the flexibility to present a nearly unlimited amount images and information. This would then not only create customer excitement and promote the building and its tenants, but also help revitalize and rejuvenate the downtown area in Bucharest.
The SolutionWhat came next was Cocor’s personal take on ‘mediatecture’, a new concept of architecture where buildings are coalesced with digital media screens. On December 1, 2008, Cocor unveiled its extraordinary outdoor LED display system, contracted, built, and installed by digital LED display manufacturer, Daktronics. The project marks the largest installation of one display vendor (Daktronics) at a single building in continental Europe and stands an impressive second to London’s Piccadilly Circus in sheer size.
The entire system comprises of 13 Daktronics LED video displays equaling a total surface of 560 square meters (6,205 sq. ft.). The main LED display, measuring approximately 24 meters high by 12 meters wide, spans roughly five stories tall from the top floor down the front of the building. A two-story tall display measuring approximately 7 meters high by 12 meters wide sits to the left of the main display on the top of the building. Both of the displays incorporate full-color pixels on 23 millimeter center-to-center spacing.
Five, double-sided, one-story tall ‘fin’ displays stairstep down from the west side of the Cocor building, one per floor spaced out horizontally. The 16 millimeter spaced LED displays extend out from the building and measure approximately 5 meters high by 3 meters wide each.
Adding to the already spectacular media façade is a Daktronics freeform video element display. Located underneath the double-sided displays on the side of the building and measuring approximately 3 meters high by 20 meters wide, the display is used primarily for depicting the Cocor MediaChannel brand and creating dynamic color washes, text, and animations. Cocor MediaChannel is part of Cocor Group, a public company listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange with a share capital of 25 million Euros—and the primary force behind the luxury store.
All of the displays utilize Daktronics’ proven LED technology to present live and recorded video images, colorful animation, and vivid graphics with incredible brightness and wide-angle visibility.
The Cocor media project was designed by StandardVision LLC, a U.S.-based company that designs, develops, and operates vertical real estate channels. Using a mix of compelling ad spots, sponsored programming, original content, branded graphics, and premium acquired programming, StandardVision creates a channel experience specifically tailored to the location, which was clearly evident with the Cocor project in Bucharest.
The architect of the Cocor building structure was Vlad Simionescu. Before opening his practice in Romania, Simionescu worked as a senior designer and design director with Cesar Pelli Architects, New Haven, U.S.A., where he collaborated on the internationally acclaimed Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (until 2004, the highest buildings in the world).
During the December unveiling, reporters from CNN and numerous newspapers, photographers and press people from all across Europe were treated to an immersive show with content provided by Keyframe® Creative Services, a creative service division of Daktronics. Cocor chose the creative services division as their preferred supplier of content for the system as they have already provided 18 separate pieces of content with some pieces incorporating all 13 displays, including logos for Cocor Channel, Cocor Luxury Store and Cocor Spa Hotel.
Cocor MediaChannel manages the display system and dedicates half of the broadcast space to brands having signed leasing contracts with Cocor Luxury Store, the financial market, cultural events, social campaigns, tourist information, live TV broadcasts, and campaigns using interactive access from a mobile phone or Internet through WiFi and Bluetooth. The other half is sold to local advertising companies.
In the past, media façades generally contained photo prints, texts and poems, or abstract images—all instances of a somewhat static form of communication. The façade of the future communicates interactively—using colors, lights, actions, and videos. Implementing digital technology onto buildings allow the advertiser the outlet to develop a unique connection between the audience and the architecture. The Cocor Luxury store—and its innovative media wall—represent the façade of the future.
For more information, visit www.daktronics.com or the Cocor Luxury Store website: www.cocorluxurystore.ro.
You may also visit the Video Gallery, which showcases Daktronics display technologies.
