Vega Global talks to Hurrairah bin Sohail about how it worked closely with the client and the consultants to take AV systems at the K11 Musea shopping mall, Hong Kong to the next level.
Modern retail spaces are technology dense areas and for good reason. Retail needs to continue to one-up itself in order to attract and engage visitors and more often than not the route to this endgame is through investment in technology.
Ray Cheng, project manager from Vega Global, speaks about a retail project that proves the point: “K11 Musea is a very different retail space and shopping mall and it has already established itself as a new landmark in Hong Kong. Compared with other shopping malls, its focus was really on using creative AV design and systems to offer something new to visitors.”
K11 Musea is another strategic project of New World Development following the opening of a flagship hotel in the shape of the Rosewood Hong Kong in April 2019. The architecture of the 10-storey shopping arcade was handled by Kohn Pedersen Fox architecture practice and James Corner Field Operation. K11 Musea covers over 1.2 million square feet of retail space in conjunction with the Rosewood hotel and together they curate and offer visitors a best-in-class immersive retail experience.
Vega Global served as the AV integrator for the K11 Musea project. Cheng says: “Due to the project scale, New World Development employed two AV consultants to take care of the project; Shen Milsom & Wilke [SM&W] was appointed to handle the BGM system design while Dinotech, whose strength lies in creative AV design, was appointed to handle the interactive display systems.”
He continues: “For comprehensive site work, there are multiple parties to deal with, including main contractor, consultants as well as the sub-contractors for different aspects. Being the AV system integrator, we should always keep an eye on the coordination and communication with each other to ensure the smooth management of the whole project.”
We start with the audio system deployed for the background music at K11 Musea. Cheng comments: “The BGM system is divided into 25 zones and you can individually adjust the audio, the volume of the playback and the music in each of the 25 zones. We’re using Dante for audio signal transmission which is also a departure from the usual analogue systems that you find in retail.”
SM&W was responsible for the design of the BGM system and it chose a range of different QSC ceiling speakers, QSC amplifiers and QSC DSPs for the job. A portable QSC line array speaker system has also been provided and this is used when the need arises. Over 1,000 speakers have been installed across K11 Musea and an 80-port network switch is used for signal distribution via Dante.
The sheer size and scale of the audio deployment was a challenge. Cheng says: “When it came to the technical design, the bandwidth required for the switching and the power requirements of the systems were very large. We needed to support thousands of speakers at the same time across multiple zones. The network to support all the AV systems has been designed and built by Vega. Sure, we are primarily an AV company, but with the convergence of AV and IT we have developed our IT skills and our network of expertise to the point where we can take on such tasks when the project demands it.”
There were also challenges with regards to making sure the audio system came together as planned. Cheng details: “BGM systems are typically one of the easier projects and zoning was not much of an issue since we are familiar with Dante. Problems arose with the choice of our switch and its integration with the QSC platform. We hadn’t previously used the two together so we had to run some tests and dry runs to make sure that the overall system would perform as we wanted. This was probably one of the aspects of the project we devoted a lot of time to.”
Over on the visual side of the deployment, LED is the display solution of choice. Cheng says: “LED videowalls have become the first choice for displays in retail environments because compared to other technology, LED is more reliable and creates a bigger impact.”
The K11 Musea shopping mall has seven unique LED videowalls. Lighthouse 6mm LED tiles are used to create an outdoor LED videowall while Lim LED tiles are used for the six indoor videowalls. Almost all the LED videowalls were built and deployed by Vega and they have different shapes. Some are oval while others are square or rectangle or wrap around the different walls of the mall.
Deploying LED displays in retail areas poses its own challenges and Cheng details: “Vega was not involved in the delivery of any of the structural elements and the construction was handled by the builder. However, for the LED videowalls we still need to make a submission to the Building Department in Hong Kong which is responsible for ensuring that such fixtures are done properly. The approval for the submission to the Building Department can take a long time and this was the main challenge for us. We had to meet project deadlines and ensure all the work was completed on schedule, so we had to make sure that our submission to the Building Department was done early enough to leave us ample time to accommodate any possible delays in securing approval.”
The LED videowalls at K11 Musea are used for different purposes. Some serve as digital signage and some are used for the live broadcast of events happening at the mall. Others are used for providing different forms of entertainment for the people at the mall. There is a large and diverse range of content that is displayed on these LED videowalls.
Regarding showcasing live content on the LED videowalls, Cheng says: “The K11 Musea shopping mall hosts a number of live events for special festivals and special days like Easter and Christmas. Cameras are brought in and these events can be captured and shown on the LED screens for the entertainment of people at the mall. We have signage players on the LED walls and have approximately 1,000 players behind the many flat panels in the mall. We can stream a signal to all of the TVs as well for people to view the live events.”
Augmenting the visual deployment at K11 Musea are three 4 x 4 videowalls comprising LG panels with BrightSign players handling content. Lastly, to add an element of interactivity and set K11 Musea apart interactive gaming platforms have been deployed at the venue. Cheng says: “For interactive gaming we have two different kinds of AV setups where one uses a flat panel display and the other uses projection. In both setups, there is a camera that is installed at an appropriate spot close to the display and this captures the user and their motion which serves as the input for the interactive games. Vega provided the hardware and deployed it while the games themselves are provided by a third party.”
With the project completed, Cheng reflects on its impact: “The client is very happy with the results, but we believe there is always room to improve and learn from the experience of working on such projects. On a personal level, I learned how to identify and address problems as they arise, and I feel this will help me spend less time on non-essential tasks in the future when it comes to AV projects.”
Cheng concludes: “This is the biggest project that Vega has handled to date and when we started, we paid special attention to ensure that it was delivered with high quality work. From the beginning, we organised our teams with members that we felt would be able to efficiently tackle different parts of the project. We broke the project down into smaller sections and had a detailed plan for tasks and milestones to keep us on track while also giving the teams the freedom and space to get the job done. I think our work for K11 Musea proves that Vega is part of a select few integrators that is capable of taking on projects of this scale and stature.”