Located in the central business district in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, KPMG Center is a boutique, 28-story LEED-Platinum certified building that includes over 600,000 square feet of Class-A office space. Originally built in 1991, KPMG Center owners Morgan Stanley and LBA Realty recently partnered with global design and architecture firm Gensler on renovations to the building’s twostory lobby, tenant lounge, conference center and outdoor terrace.
The updated lobby features several design improvements including a new coffee kiosk, elegant seating areas and new interior landscaping. The grand centerpiece is a massive digital art canvas covering one of the walls. Measuring nearly 74 feet wide and 11 feet high, the installation is a Planar® TVF Series LED video wall with a 2.5mm pixel pitch (TVF2.5) in a 37x10 configuration.
Digital signage agency Grandview Digital designed the LED video wall and will be managing, creating and curating content for the display. For assistance with the project, Grandview partnered with MediaCentric for the installation, commissioning, and programming.
Grandview founder James Ravenel was initially approached by LBA Reality during the design phase, when the project team became interested in supplementing the lobby with a digital experience, something that would work well with the architecture and support their vision for the reimagined space. “Over a twoyear period, we worked closely with Gensler and the owners on the concept and design and developed several versions,” Ravenel explained. “Ultimately, we settled on a giant panoramic canvas.”
The biggest challenge to the project involved installing such a massive LED display across an irregular wall surface marked by three elevator foyer openings. “Most video walls are built from the bottom up, but in this case, we had to take a custom approach to cope with the three elevator walkways,” said MediaCentric President and CEO David Lopez. “We had to uniquely build up, over and down each opening, and then level every row across the gaps.”
"For a video wall this big, the design flexibility of the Planar TVF Series modules was a useful feature," according to Eric Broyles, regional manager and technical specialist with MediaCentric. “Adjustments on the cabinet corners made it easy to fine-tune as we went along to ensure that no seams were visible and that the video wall was completely straight,” he said.
Content for the large Planar TVF Series LED video wall has been carefully selected and will include a combination of thematic scenery and custom digital artwork. “It’s a beautiful, breathtaking lobby and the intention of the LED canvas is to create an immersive, calming atmosphere—a place that will draw people to come and unwind,” Ravenel said.
Thematic imagery created for the LED video wall blends static and video content that dynamically moves through varying backdrops, changing intermittently throughout the day to different landscapes that can include beach, forested, mountain and urban scenes, according to Ravenel.
For sourcing artistic content, local artists will be engaged to create digital murals specifically tailored to the LED video wall. “We will add after-effect animation to the murals to give them movement,” Ravenel said. “Integrating animation into a digital landscape is something you can only do with LED. It’s a very interesting way to embrace digital art in a physical environment.”
To keep content fresh, Grandview will make bi-monthly updates, bringing in new scenes from new curated playlists and showcasing work from different artists. “What’s really exciting is that the LED video wall is not used to push a brand or sell a product,” Ravenel said. “Rather, it’s about using technology to create something meaningful.”
The Planar TVF Series is an award-winning family of fine pitch LED video wall displays that provide visual excellence for every application. Featuring a cableless and stackable design, Planar TVF Series video walls are assembled with a single-step process to connect embedded power and signal connectors from cabinet to cabinet, reducing the complexity of installation and vertical alignment. With front serviceability and a slim profile of less than three inches, the Planar TVF Series reduces the overall video wall footprint and servicing space required behind the wall-making it simpler to fit in more spaces compared to other video wall solutions. Planar TVF Series video walls are covered by Planar® EverCare™ Lifetime Limited Warranty, which is designed to deliver total assurance for customers while reducing their lifetime cost of ownership. Planar EverCare is comprehensive and covers the entire product-from controller to sub-pixel and every component in between as long as the end customer continues to own and use it in a fixed location.
