LED lighting project design company LightWild (Overland Park, KS) has just completed two, software-controlled architectural projects on the newly opened, 17,000-seat, O2 World Arena in Berlin, Germany. The project, one of the world's largest architectural LED lighting grids, spans across the entire south glass façade of the new arena, which opened September 10, 2008. The arena is located on 50 acres along the Spree River near the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery.
The approximately 15,000-sq.-ft. installation displays motion graphics and video content, and utilizes more than 7,000 controlled LightWild Pixels and 280,000 individual LEDs. The Pixels are housed inside 117 custom-designed aluminum mullions with domed optical lenses, which are spaced evenly across the entire width of the curved glass façade.
Inside, two lobbies feature thousands of controlled fluorescent and LED fixtures behind frosted acrylic lenses.
LightWild provided the engineering piece and the physical supplies. Installation was done by a German construction firm.
Randy Jones, LightWild’s director of engineering, said the company’s worked early in the process with the architects and engineers to achieve the light output and the look.
Using its LightWild Pixel as the LED light source, LightWild worked closely with the arena's architects — HOK Sport and JSK Architects — and owner Anschutz Entertainment Group to engineer a building mullion that houses the pixels and also blends them seamlessly into the building's exterior facade.
In the lobbies, LightWild's project-engineering team and building architects designed a blue aluminum housing with openings for lenses that encased the pixels and was installed directly to the arena walls.
LED façade
The 380 x 40 ft. LED facade is built on a 104° curve with an average radius of 213 ft. There are 117 vertical mullions spaced slightly more than 3 ft. horizontally across the façade. In total, 7,020 LightWild pixels are installed in the vertical mullions on the façade of the arena. With 40 LEDs per Pixel, 280,800 LEDs are used on the façade.
The curved façade presented an optical challenge. Although each section of glass on the facade is flat, a slight angle (less than 1°) between each section curves the façade. Therefore, the horizontal light from the LEDs tends to separate more than it would from a flat surface. So, LightWild developed a secondary optical lens that allowed maximum (88%) light transmission and also created light dispersion in the horizontal direction. Multiple samples were created and reviewed with the U.S. architects and the German project team to find the perfect solution.
Jones said, “The furthest I saw the façade was from a mile and half away, from the 200m-tall TV tower at the Alexander Plaza. We actually could read some of the lettering at that distance.”
A PC with LightWild’s proprietary software controls content scheduling. Within the system, the operator can do quick text interrupts. For example, if a player inside scores a goal, they can replace the exterior façade to read “Goal!”
The main lobby walls and ceilings, as well as the VIP lobby walls and ceilings, feature 4,494 fixtures (588 fluorescent and 3,906 LightWild LED Pixels) that are individually controlled from the arena control room through a LightWild-designed network that transmits DMX signals over the Ethernet to the LED fixtures. The DALI protocol was also used to control the ceiling fluorescent fixtures.
Contract details
Using a video display, instead of LEDs, was considered early in the process. However, because the media feature was to incorporate the entire façade, a video system of that size would be astronomically expensive. Also, a conventional video display would block all visibility through the south façade from inside the arena. The LightWIld LEDs don’t block visibility, and the light they emit is imperceptible from inside the arena.
LightWild worked with HOK, which is also Kansas City-based, who had seen LightWild’s work on the south façade of the Kansas City Marriott. HOK contacted LightWild and began a series of engineering reviews with the Berlin team. Finalizing the plans took roughly a year. The contract was signed in early 2007, and the company delivered product to Berlin in January 2008.
Jones said, “It was a very quick process, but we had to meet the deadline of the arena’s opening. We also had to fit within the owners’ very stringent architectural needs concerning aesthetics, light output, and light pollution. We had to work with local authorities and architects to make sure that all the regulations were adhered to.”
One challenge was to ensure the LEDs, cables and controls would be concealed, yet accessible within the architecture to the staff.
The arena will be used for concerts, sporting events and other special events.