the beacon - Pittsburgh, USA - 2015
Role: Architectural Designer at ESI Design
Client: PNC Bank
Scope: Lobby Sculptural Element Design, Engineering and Construction Administration
Consultants: Gensler Architects, Parallel Development NYC
Videos: Check out the Beacon in action here! See how we prototyped the Beacon here!
Details: The Beacon at the Tower at PNC Plaza is an iconic, multi-sensory, audio-visual public experience, that interprets data from the green building system, visible from both inside the lobby and outside at the street level.
The funnel-like form of The Beacon hangs down 24-feet from the ceiling of the lobby. The surface of the Beacon is a media canvas that displays continuously shifting patterns of light, color, sound, and text to express—in real-time—data from the building systems. The Beacon also displays information about the weather and environmental conditions.
The Beacon is made from of 1,584 liquid-crystal polycarbonate panels, each backed with a grid of 8 LEDs, constructed of 32 horizontal rows—the number of floors in The Tower—and 48 vertical rows around.