The Melbourne City Council (MCC) has deployed a display to promote and celebrate the city’s rich aboriginal history at the city’s Town Hall. Citadel Solutions Architect Paul Materazzo and the Citadel team designed the LED Blades display and then turned to Digital Place Solutions (DPS) and NanoLumens for a LED Nixel Plate solution that would reimagine a 19th century building for a 21st century audience of visitors.
Materazzo explained: “The MCC had a specific idea to try and attract people to enter into the town hall visitor centre off the street and they wanted a display to grab people's attention with a visually stunning presentation of the region’s Aboriginal history. This would be their first LED display installation and they wanted it to be stunning and immediately compelling.”
Materazzo added: “The MCC wanted a solution that would allow them to display individual words or images down each post, so I came up with the design of the four posts and I wanted them in various heights to enable each to have individual media displayed or a complete display over all four posts.”
The finished display consists of four unequal length blades, the tallest at 2.2m, with a total display width of 1.1m.
The specific content includes an introduction to Melbourne from the Aboriginal community along with subtle imagery depicting the transition of the Aboriginal history to modern day Melbourne. A voiceover explains how the Aboriginal people see the land today and how it still connects with their history. Visitors are then directed to the area's many galleries and museums that showcase Aboriginal culture.
DPS Director Gerry Thorley, director at DPS, said: “Through DPS’ experience and NanoLumens support we were able to use the two international time zones to work out the design, drawings and budget very quickly. DPS, NanoLumens, and Citadel really pulled together as a team to deliver a stunning LED display solution on time and on budget.”
Susan Jacqui, Senior Project Coordinator, Business and Tourism for the MCC added, “The element of speed, flexibility, and commitment to make it happen on the part of NanoLumens and DPS played a major role in turning Citadel's and MCC's ‘dream of an idea’ into a compelling and engaging reality.”