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![]() Barclays Bank Lights up Times Square Skyline
By Louis M Brill
It's pretty hard to miss the beauty of this new landmark on the skyline of New York City at 745 Seventh Avenue
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To do so Barclays commissioned a blue-chip team including Landor Associates, Gensler Architects, JLS, Structure Tone, and Herring Media Group (Glastonbury, CT) to oversee the implementation of Barclays brand and iconic Manhattan presence, and basically to get Barclays "name in lights" in the middle of Times Square. "We were brought on to design and commission the lighting and signage for Barclays new Manhattan location," said CEO and Principal Designer Marc Herring. "This included a 4th floor podium facade above street level and the introduction of the Brand's skyline signage at the top of 745 Seventh Avenue in New York City."
Designing the Barclay Bank brand as sign and logo
With the design brief in place, the Herring Media Group tested the 'look' by simulating the channel letters and Barclays logo as a laser projection on the curtain wall where the actual channel letters were intended to be placed. "Using nearby neighboring buildings in Times Square," said Herring, "we projected back onto the Barclays curtain walls and depicted a schematic drawing at scale. We studied the placement and scale of the signage components (eagle icon and corporate name) to see how the signage would 'read,' how well it looked on the building and how it looked from various points of view at street level and as far away as New Jersey."
Transforming curtain wall into world's tallest lantern
"To create Barclays uniform brand color on each curtain wall, Philips Color Kinetics ColorReach and ColorGraze LED RGB fixtures with custom lenses were fitted opposite each interior side of the curtain wall. On the center of the roof was the building's cooling tower (for HVAC) which was surrounded by Alucobond walls. To maximize the lighting efficiency of illuminating the lantern columns of the curtain wall, RGB LED Philips ColorReach lighting fixtures were placed on vertical I-beams against the cooling tower walls and the ColorGrazes were positioned in the catwalks and both were aimed back towards the now frosted curtain walls. Altogether about 80-LED fixtures were used on each side of the building to present a perfect beam spread and create the blue glowing lantern effect across the entire top of the building. During the day, the 'lantern' wall remained white, and starting at dusk began a very gradual chromatic cross fade transition of the curtain wall, slowly transforming it into Barclays corporate blue background. And while that was happening, the channel letter color were equally transforming in the opposite direction from daytime blue to brilliant white to fill the evening Times Square skyline. Once the lantern effect was in place, Herring noted, "we proceeded to the next step of initiating the fabrication of four sets of logos and channel letters." That project was issued to Going Sign (Plainview, NY). Once fabricated, the signage was to be installed on each side of the building which was located at Seventh Avenue, between 49th and 51st Street in Manhattan (the former Lehman Brothers building). In so doing this project, there were several big challenges as described by Kevin Going, Vice President of Going Sign.
"First of all, whatever signage we would fabricate had to eventually get to the building roof for instillation which meant using the building's freight elevator to get all the sign components to their final destinations. Thus we were constrained by the freight elevator's overall interior dimensions as to how big we make each sign part." "Typically when you build a sign, you fabricate it in a shop, when it's done, you transport the sign to the site for installation. In the Barclays bank project, we began by building each set of channel letters in our Plainville sign shop, as fabricated aluminum letters. Each aluminum letter was about 10-feet in height and each (depending on the letter) weighed between 600 pounds to 800 pounds. The eagle logo was approximately 15-feet in height" At that point, once completed, a new phase of fabrication - more like deconstruction began, where we took the finished channel letters, and separated each channel letter into more manageable and smaller letter section sub-components that were then trucked to the building and taken to the rooftop."
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"Although we were outdoors on the top of a 40-story building, it was fortunate that the rooftop was completely surrounded by a 90-foot glass curtain wall as it did act as a wind block (but no protection from the cold) which created an easier space for us to reassemble the channel letters. To initiate the next phase of preparing the letters for their final installation on the side of the building, we located a temporary sign shop onto the building's roof top. Once we were on the roof, we began reassembling the letter sections into their final letter forms, bolting them together, doing all the final LED electrical assembly to each letter and then placing a 3M Panaflex face with 3M Dual color vinyl on each letter face.
Panaflex cover-up The solution was to use a translucent flexible vinyl as it offered large enough sheets to completely cover each letter as a single facing element. To keep it taunt against the letter form, each vinyl face was "over sized" and their ends overlapped the edge of the channel letter. To fasten it, the vinyl edge was held fast against the sides of the channel letter and clamped in place."
"Our next big challenge was how we were going to move the channel letters from the rooftop, lift them over the top of a 90-foot glass curtain wall and then lower them for placement on the exterior side of the curtain wall. There was also the 'small matter' as to how each letter was to be attached to the curtain wall. The solution to the first problem was actually very simple. We used a temporary rooftop derrick that was acquired and (you guessed it) disassembled to fit into the building elevator, and section by section brought to the roof where it was reassembled."
"At the top of the inside of the glass curtain wall, there was a rail system that went around all four sides of the building. The derrick and the accompanying scaffold were reassembled on the rails, and this allowed the derrick and the Going crew to move from one side of the building to the next side to place the Barclays logo and name on each curtain wall."
Once a channel letter was made ready to go, it was positioned in the derrick's pick up zone for lifting and final placement. At that point a very delicate lifting choreography began, noted Going, "this involved lifting each channel letter from the rooftop to the top of the curtain wall, over the side, and then in a very slow descent, lowering the channel letter to the exact position for final placement on the curtain wall. In doing the final lifting of each channel letter, one of our concerns was the derrick's curtain wall clearance as we had about sixteen-foot clearance from the derrick arm to the edge of the curtain wall. With our 10-foot channel letters that was okay, but the bank eagle logo was about 15-feet tall so that was a very tight fit when that went over the curtain wall edge."
Weather concerns vs. lifting process
Attaching channel letters to glass curtain walls "The biggest challenge in installing side aluminum signs on a glass curtain wall was that we did not have a solid wall to install the channel letters to, all we had were the mullions (vertical support) and transoms (horizontal members similar to mullions). Typically when you're installing a sign on a curtain wall, you set mounting rails on the mullions and install the letters on the rails. The problem is, the mounting rails are visible between each letter. The architect vetoed this potential solution during our first meeting."
"Before installing the fin plates, slots were carefully cut (drilled and sawed) through the aluminum vertical mullions and horizontal transoms. The stainless steel fin plates were bolted to the mullions and transoms, working from inside the curtain wall," noted Lewis. "Corresponding clip angles were then fitted to the backside of each channel letter. During the erecting of each channel letter, the fin plates from the mullions and transoms would nest against the channel letter's clip angles and would be bolted together."
Heads turned when the building lit up Louis M. Brill is a journalist and consultant for high-tech entertainment and media communications. He can be reached at (415) 664-0694 or louisbrill@sbcglobal.net
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