Room With a View
by K. Schipper
Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, but for many people it just isn’t enough to look out a window anymore—even when that window is 103 stories in the sky.
The first to discover that distressing fact were the owners of New York’s World Trade Center. They called on the La Crescenta, Calif.-based Dellmont Leisure Design to spice up their Top of the World observation deck with a mix of electronic displays and first-rate graphic images to give tourists something to see besides other buildings.
Not only did the redesigned and redecorated deck strike a chord with visitors to the world’s fourth tallest structure, but David Schweninger, a principal with Dellmont, says that company recognized a possible niche market in other large buildings that might need to remake their observation space. Among those responding: the managing owners of the Sears Tower in Chicago.
“Historically, we’ve just been an observatory,” says Mike Poss, general manager for the Sears Tower Skydeck. “We needed to create more of an entertainment venue and we felt one option to draw both locals and tourist traffic was to provide a celebration of Chicago.”
Schweninger agrees that the original space—which Poss calls, “a floor with windows” —needed help.
“What was up there was simply deadly,” says Schweninger. “It was painted mostly black with brown carpet on the interior walls and a purple-and-black tile floor. People would stand in line for two-and-a-half hours to get up there, and then they’d come back down in about 20 minutes.”
Soul of Chicago
Not that getting the job to redo the Sears Tower Skydeck was as simple as submitting a proposal. Dellmont faced competition from several larger firms and then the company’s concept for the space had to be reviewed by focus groups made up primarily of educators.
“Everybody liked what we wanted to do,” says Schweninger.
Further complicating the process was that effective management of the building was taken over by owner TrizecHahn after work had begun on the project. While their people were satisfied with the proposal and agreed to let it move ahead, resulting delays pushed back the reopening of the Skydeck from last Halloween until April of this year.
Entitled, “The Sites and Soul of Chicago,” the Skydeck features a mix of digitally-printed graphics and computer-driven DVD displays. That combination is designed to give viewers a better idea of what they’re seeing both outside the windows of the tower and—through the use of what Schweninger calls the “wall bites” that make up the interior display—a look at little-known aspects of the Windy City’s history.
Although TrizecHahn officials expressed concern early on that parts of the display could cause bottlenecks on the Skydeck, Schweninger says that hasn’t happened. Instead, Dellmont’s chief architect, James Fox, came up with the idea of using curved walls, which—along with the carpet and some additional features—tend to pull viewers along.
Much of the actual design for the museum-quality exhibit was shared between Dellmont’s chief designer, Michael Devine, and designers at the Pasadena, Calif.-based Hunt Design Associates, which acted as a subcontractor on the project.
A Lengthy Process
Both Schweninger and Jennifer Bressler, an associate at Hunt who did a large amount of work involved in creating the graphics, say coming up with the material used was a lengthy process that involved plenty of teamwork.
“We had about 50 books we bought about Chicago on all kinds of things,” says Schweninger. “Ultimately we went through something like 700 pictures. We then had to select each of the pictures we used, and permission had to be obtained to use the originals.”
Fortunately, he adds, the Chicago Historical Society was quite enthused about the project and owned many of the pictures. When that wasn’t the case, other owners had to be located and arrangements made. Also during that time a Chicago-based writer was creating the text used with the exhibit.
Once the original photos were obtained, they were scanned by the Sylmar, Calif.-based Williams Graphic Process, which also printed the final images. Lance Taylor, William’s chief designer on the project, says low resolution scans of the images were then provided to Bressler, who worked up the final designs for the graphics using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator software on a Macintosh computer.
“We designed it in a way that’s non-linear,” says Bressler. “As you enter, there’s an obvious way to start, but you can go in any direction, because each of the stories is, in itself, a separate story.”
“Jennifer did all of the layout on her computer, says Schweninger, acknowledging Bressler’s contribution. “She and Michael (Devine) and to some degree myself picked out all the typefaces and the arrangements and she put them on the walls. Then, we’d do little models and we’d look at them and change them and that’s how we worked our way through it.”
A key feature of the design is the bottom four feet of each display, which is called, “Knee-High Chicago,” and presents separate information for children.
“For instance, we’d go back to the 1920s and say, “This is how you’d look, this is how you’d dress and this is what you’d have for breakfast then,” says Schweninger.
That portion of the display also integrates current electronic technology. In one instance, a child can appear to look into an old motion picture camera and see a 1920 silent film of a couple of children being chased—complete with slapstick and pratfalls—to note that Chicago was an early movie mecca. In another, a look through a “fence” shows a slice of a baseball game between the Cubs and White Sox, complete with a homerun being hit out of the park.
“The kids really love it. They have a big time looking through all the holes,” says Schweninger. “Their parents are often down on their knees looking, too. It’s really been successful. We haven’t heard any negative comments about it.”
Scans to Production
Once the designs for the panels were agreed upon, the Adobe Illustrator files were handed back to Williams Graphic Process, and the low-resolution photos replaced with high-res scans of the same images.
“The majority of the scans were done on an Agfa flatbed scanner at 1250 dpi,” says Taylor. “We printed the high resolution ones at 100 pixels-per-inch, actual size. The low resolution ones were probably about an eighth of that size at 72 pixels-per-inch.”
Despite the fact that many of the photos used were old and had historic significance, Williams’ Steve Williams says scanning them wasn’t a problem.
“We know and are used to handing valuable pieces like that,” Williams says. “We just take great care to make sure everything is well cared for and secure while it’s in our possession.”
Even with the files in the shop, both Williams and Taylor say it was a fairly lengthy process to get them ready for final production.
“The files were fairly complete,” says Williams. “We still did color bars, color strips and samples of certain photographs that were questionable. Because they were old photos we had to manipulate and play with them a bit. It was a fairly exhaustive production cycle.”
Of course, file size was something of a consideration.
“The largest unit was 32’ x 8’,” says Taylor. “That would have been one file. Each section dedicated to a different subject was one file, and each had from three to a dozen pictures in it.”
After utilizing a Vivid Image RIP, the files were output by Williams’ ENCAD Pro 60 with pigmented inks directly onto Lexan sheets using a process developed by the company. Both Williams and Schweninger explain that the process and the substrate were selected because of their durability.
“People can damage it if they take a knife to it,” says Williams, adding that the company has done theme park graphics using the same process. “But, it’s the same material you find on ATM machines and other areas where there are a lot of hands on it, with people rubbing it and touching it. It’s pretty tough.”
Schweninger says the process is an improvement over some of the work done for the World Trade Center. There, signatures of famous New Yorkers (that had been printed on vinyl and then laminated) were cut off the walls by people waiting for elevators.
“They couldn’t do that here,” says Schweninger. “The material is difficult to hang because it’s not very forgiving, but the quality is great. It’s a surface that’s hard to hurt.”
Along with the 4’ X 8’ panels of the display, the company also printed 60-70 cutouts that were also printed digitally on the Lexan, had adhesive laminated to the back, then applied to the surface of the exhibit to give it added dimension. To finish the job, Williams also digitally printed the soffit capping the display for color matching, then cut half-inch acrylic letters that were stud applied to the soffits.
Because Williams Graphic Process is a full-service company, Williams says doing such a wide range of work wasn’t a big problem.
“It was actually a fairly straightforward project,” he says. “They wanted archive pictures and artifacts and we have all the capabilities of scanning and color correction to do that and give it a great look at the same time.
To finish the job, the completed panels were shipped to Chicago and assembled by a local company there.
Skydeck manager Poss says he’s quite please with the graphics.
Creative Solutions
“I thought Hunt was extremely creative and really brought everything together well,” he says. “They created good continuity, while creatively differentiating the various focus areas through the development of insets and backlit areas. They brought a creative life to the walls, as opposed to just looking like another museum exhibit.”
The fact that Williams works on the same platform as Hunt made for a smooth job, Bressler says. Still, there were some challenges. “The most difficult thing was to create a seamless-looking environment, even though there was a seam about every four feet,” she says. “Another challenge was coming up with ways to transition smoothly from curved wall surfaces to flat ones.” The idea was to use the graphics to get all the subject matter across without having it look as if it was tiled. The solution? “By thinking a little bit ahead, we were able to strategically place text, photos and dimensional graphics in places that would basically hide all the seams.”
While weather is always a factor in the Skydeck experience, Poss adds that, where actual days can be compared, attendance is up more than 7 percent since the remodeling was complete. The job has also helped spread the crowds more uniformly over the hours the facility is open,
partly by drawing more night traffic.
“That was one of our goals,” Poss concludes. “Because of’ the lighting and sound we have in Skydeck at night, it creates more of a romantic and upscale feel, and it allows us to have a better presentation in the evenings, as well.
“It’s really allows us to better market our attraction.”
CLIENT: TrizecHahn Office Properties, Chicago
DESIGNERS: Dellmont Leisure Design, La Crescenta, CA, and Hunt Design Associates, Inc., Pasadena, CA
PRINTER: Williams Graphic Process, Sylmar, CA