NBBJ ESI Design

ESI Digital Media Design

# Boston 2022

Verizon , a company located in the center of Boston's Copper Dragon Bay entertainment district's new innovation center , is one of the three major giants in the US communications industry, continuously providing users with cutting-edge network experiences.

Verizon commissioned ESI to design a new architectural installation, aiming to integrate its own platform technology to express the company brand and attract partners and talent. It will become a new landmark in the Boston skyline.

Thus, ESI divides the space into four parts: exterior, entrance, main hall, and sky hall. The top of the exterior space uses interactive elements that extend indoors.

When people approach the building's exterior canopy, the sensor in the light acts like a welcoming host, responding to dynamic changes in people's movements to express welcome to visitors.

On the main hall's curtain wall, you can see colorful pattern projects from across Boston that tell stories of local events and special occasions.

Entrance to the Atrium, where acoustic panels and integrated surround speakers create an immersive visual experience.

The terrace ceiling utilizes the same interactive technology as the entrance, with dazzling color changes that reflect Verizon's innovative spirit in every breath.

# 2022 New York

This departure hall and baggage claim area at New York LaGuardia Airport was designed by ESI, invited by Delta Air Lines. Delta wanted to connect customers with the brand through art.

Vertical columns of high-resolution LED create a stunning threshold. The installation showcases beautiful scenery from the journey, alleviates boredom, and subtly reminds passengers not to miss the surprises around them.

At the baggage claim area, four high-resolution media strips at the Export area display cityscapes familiar to locals.

When passengers cross these thresholds, the device captures a scene from space, leaving a lasting impression.

The entire art installation makes the journey begin with anticipation in the departure hall and end with art in the baggage area.

# 2020 Canada

ESI Design created six LED boxes hanging from the ceiling for the lobby.

Like jewels in a jewelry box, this device named Prisms mixes realistic and abstract art.

It showcases scenes inspired by Edmonton, the night sky, and the ocean, combined with real-time data including time of day, season, and weather.

These boxes are equipped with floor-standing LED poles that guide visitors to the hotel's retail mall.

Beacon Capital Partners invites ESI to reawaken the vitality of the building.

ESI designed a dynamic LED lighting experience for the building lobby and entrance, where LED lights reveal a serene glow through custom perforated metal wall panels.

These perforations consist of 1s and 0s from binary code, forming an aerial image of the Santa Clara Valley aqueduct.

The code itself spells out the poem "It's been a long time" by Bay Area poet Joanne Kyger.

This design visually references the natural environment surrounding San Jose and the technology

# New York 2019

At the new Statue of Liberty Museum, ESI Design leverages its unique expertise and product design to give visitors the opportunity to explore the history and grandeur of this landmark and reflect on the meaning of freedom in today's world.

ESI Design uses interactive media in a new and unexpected way to tell the important cultural story of freedom and bring the history of the statue to life.

The museum tour begins with an immersive theater, where a documentary serves as an introduction, taking visitors on a cinematic flight through the monument and outlining the statue's story from its origins to the present day.

The highlight of the Museum is undoubtedly the Inspiration Gallery, where visitors reflect on their role in a free future by adding self-portraits and motivational images to an ever-growing digital mural.

# 2019 New York

Warner Bros. located at Hudson Yards in New York hopes that ESI can integrate its subsidiaries, including Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, and TNT, under a single corporate umbrella to express brand unity.

ESI fulfilled this unprecedented brand challenge by creating a digital sculpture of approximately 20 meters, realizing the corporate vision.

Digital sculpture acts as the main beam of the staircase, running through the entire floor.

The seemingly random colors and light patterns of the sculpture are actually algorithmically generated abstractions of Warner Bros. Discovery content.

At night, the digital sculpture resembles an optical fiber, continuously transmitting data.

ESI also developed a custom content management system (CMS) that provides the Warner team with visual and scheduling operational logic to interact with ubiquitous screens, allowing visitors and employees to explore in depth.

# 2019 Chicago, Illinois

The history of this building dates back to 1883, when executives from the largest railroad company in the United States gathered here to establish the country's four time zones (including Central Standard Time).

After Beacon Capital Partners acquired Continental Illinois Bank Building (231 S. LaSalle St.), they invited ESI to give the building a resonant identity again.

ESI renamed it the Central Standard Building and created a new lobby design that blends modern style with classic 19th-century decoration.

The core of this design is an LED ring that can play five types of content:

-"The Pulse of Chicago", real-time airline traffic for the city.

- "Building ID", cleverly presenting the property logo

-"Central Standard Time", local time.

-World Clock, displays the time of specific cities in each time zone around the world

# 2019 San Francisco

ESI designed a media installation for the lobby that responds to passersby's footsteps, making the space feel spacious and vibrant.

The media is driven by a set of sensors that track visitors as they walk through the lobby. As people enter and exit the elevator area, their traces become digital brushes, leaving a colorful path on the
.

As more and more people fill the hall, the strokes on the screen become more colorful.

# Boston 2019

ESI created a 25-meter-high digital media installation that, from the outside, looks like an aquarium embedded in the building. The screens inside display the city outside and the distant bay, breaking down the barrier between the interior and exterior.

The custom screen adopts three digital art modes to present, creating three distinct experiences and reacting passersby in an interesting interactive way.

Silhouette Mode: A group of silhouetted people stroll across the media screen, waving and dancing, responding in real time to passersby's movements.

Bay Mode: Underwater Panorama features animated schools of fish throughout the hall, based on native species from the Charles River and Massachusetts Bay.

Building ID: Media orchestration also provides a platform to showcase building branding and offers customized tenant information.

# 2018 Glendale, California

ESI designed an interesting interactive musical clock tower for the town square, called Chromaphone. This public art installation turns everyone visiting the square into a musician.

Users can generate sound and color in the iconic digital clock tower using Chromphone's "Waterfall Sequencer" or "Element Sampler" to play different movements.

Indoor screens are connected to the outdoors.

Every hour, the chimes of the musical clock tower echo across the square, and visitors can join in the performance.

# 2016 Washington

Terrell Place, an office and retail complex located in downtown Washington D.C., features a very awkward connection corridor between its three buildings. After Beacon Capital acquired Terrell Place, they commissioned ESI Design to improve the spatial environment, creating a harmonious and pleasant indoor space.

ESI thus seamlessly integrated the 158-square-meter LED display into the wall, creating a visual journey atmosphere.

LED displays scattered in the lobby and corridors are activated by passersby via an infrared camera system, creating a beautiful scene that ebbs and flows with the morning rush and the calm of the afternoon.

Three custom content modes—"Season", "Color Play", and "Cityscape"—are programmed with different durations and sequences to ensure visitors never see the same scene twice.

"Four Seasons" showcases the iconic lifecycle of Washington D.C. cherry trees, from spring blossoms to snow-covered branches.

When people approach the curtain wall, the cherry blossom trees in the image will sway and the fireworks will gather, responding to the passing crowds.

# New York

The old lobby at 575 Fifth Avenue, owned by Beacon Capital Partners, was later converted into WeWork, a co-working space.

ESI adopts an elegant design, premium materials, and data-driven media to bring the vibrancy and grandeur of New York City indoors.

Textured Bianco Carrera marble wall treatment blends classical elegance with vitality and dynamism.

A LED screen ribbon wraps around walls and columns, like a horizontal slice taken from the building.

ESI-designed custom media blends exquisite cinematic videos and animated infographics to present information across three sections: market observations (charts of recent stock market data), local events (photos of top attractions in New York City and coverage of sporting events), and news (word clouds from financial institutions such as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times).

# Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2015

This is a digital media installation, approximately 7 meters high, where each of its 32 layers corresponds to one floor of the tower.

The device is composed of 1,584 liquid crystal polycarbonate panels, each featuring a low-resolution LED grid that converts data into evolving patterns of light, color, and sound.

# Chicago, Illinois 2015

located at 300 South Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago has become a new landmark of Chicago under the design of ESI.

On the building facade facing the river, there is a massive 40-story high map relief mural; red blocks indicate the building's location within the city.

The indoor screen continues the map from the exterior, making the street appear to extend endlessly when viewed through the window.

# 2015 Shanghai China

Based on the World Expo theme "City, Better Life", Dream Cube takes visitors on a vibrant, dreamlike journey through the past, present, and future of the city.

Over 80,000 photos uploaded by Shanghai citizens via the Dream Cube website (also designed by ESI), documenting the transformation of this city.