Date Announced: 06 Jun 2011 Wolfenbuettel, Germany. eFour – a technology company specialised in custom creative media and lighting solutions to the international architectural market, is proud to showcase the custom-made, environmentally friendly LED media façade it has designed, manufactured and installed at Autostadt - the communication platform of the Volkswagen Group in Wolfsburg.The installation welcomes visitors to the 9th Movimentos Festival Weeks, which take place from April to end of May 2011. The custom-made façade will show an animated version of the Movimentos logo, which will be visible to visitors from far away.Autostadt is Volkswagen’s flagship automotive theme park, car delivery centre, attraction world, event location, technology centre, automotive museum and a place for education. Every year it welcomes about 2 Million visitors to the 25 hectare visitors area. The new environmentally responsible LED installation that now welcomes visitors to the state-of-the-art centre replaces the neon installation that graced the main façade of the entrance building for the past 10 years since its opening.The new LED installation had to adhere to three major design criteria: it had to simulate the original neon installation, blend seamlessly with the building’s architecture and it had to remain true to Volkswagen’s values of environmental protection and sustainable development.“The Autostadt team was specifically looking for an LED solution that would offer them sophisticated video technology capabilities yet would also blend seamlessly with the existing architectural structure of the building,” says Claas Ernst, eFour’s Founder and CEO. “They wanted an installation with full video control and colour blending ability in order to convert the steel/glass façade into a true media façade.”Custom-designedeFour offered Autostadt a custom-designed LED solution of 800 linear meters of video controlled diffused LED tube that covers over 2000 square meters of building façade, with all LED tubes in custom lengths that fill the exact height of each single window frame in the façade. The tubes are placed vertically across the façade to form a vast low-resolution screen capable of displaying abstract visuals and colour fades, but also text and video graphics. As one of the major design criteria, the installation had to mimic the original neon installation; hence each single LED pixel was covered with a diffuse material that is homogenously backlit to look just like neon tubes. Since the entire LED system is based on sophisticated video processing technology with full colour correction capability, it was easy to program the system to simulate the exact colour tone of the original neon installation.The custom-designed mounting brackets and cable covers, as well as a construction matched in colour and texture to the building’s own metal construction, results in a perfectly integrated, highly transparent, and elegant installation. Following the company’s principles of sustainable development, the LED installation also saves over 70% in energy and maintenance costs compared to the costs associated with the original neon installation.Content to suit every occasion.Using a Pandoras Box Media Server system as video source, Autostadt has decided to integrate the façade into the communication mix for seasonal events. While the system will mimic the original neon installation for most of the year, it will take full advantage of its video control capabilities to display custom-created content to support events such as the Movimentos Festival weeks currently taking place as well as the company’s summer and winter events. “We are very proud to have been chosen by the Autostadt team to deliver this beautiful architectural project, which allowed us to show just a fraction of our technical capabilities. With our experience, flexibility and attention to detail we convinced Autostadt that eFour would be the best partner to deliver this unique video installation based on their very specific requirements. We are proud today to see the Autostadt team absolutely satisfied with the way we managed the project, the combined team effort with other companies involved in the project, the smooth integration and the final result.” Ernst concludes.Project facts:Client: Volkswagen AG and Autostadt GmbH Technology: 336 custom-designed and manufactured eFour LED video tubesArchitect: Henn ArchitektenAbout eFour.eFour is a technology company based in Wolfenbuettel Germany that offers custom creative media and lighting solutions to the international architectural market.
Contact
Claas Ernst Tel: +49 5331 8567392
E-mail:[email protected]
