The largest expanse of LED ceiling lighting ever installed in a shopping mall and the 15-meter high LED displays on the shopping centre’s towers, which resemble bar codes, are not on sale in any shops. Neither are the digital media pillars and the static signage in the Mall. They are new products especially developed by iart interactive for the new building’s exterior and interior. They are intended not just to perform their primary function but also to turn shopping into a pleasant experience. Nowadays, people expect shops to be more than places where they merely make their purchases: they want to feel good, to have exciting experiences and to be given direction. In the ‘Stücki’ Shopping Centre, iart interactive’s light and media concept makes a significant contribution to achieving this. In creative cooperation with the architects, Diener & Diener, iart developed a multimedia approach that completes the architectural and communications concept by providing both scenographical elements and a narrative.

15 Meter-High LED Fields on the Façades
The shopping experience starts as soon as you approach the four ‘Stücki’ towers. Their upper part is covered by 15-meter high LED fields adapted to the building that show moving illuminated messages on two sides of the façade. Their content changes depending on the needs of the Mall and its shops. Although they can be used to show brand names and products, advertising is not their principal purpose: the moving patterns, text messages and images mainly refer to general facts – such as public holidays and seasons – and give the building a lively appeal that radiates in white or coloured light far beyond the mall itself. Software developed by iart interactive assures that the content submitted is abstracted and suitably communicated on the LED fields.
Each tower is covered by around 13 000 vertically mounted light points that extend over two sides of the towers in blocks measuring 17 x 17 cm. The fields are reminiscent of bar codes, for they are not completely filled with LEDs, but contain vertical gaps of differing widths that are perceived as strips covering the image. Thanks to the brain’s creative ability to complement what it perceives the image remains readable, even though it is only partially visible. The brain automatically seeks the complete image in what seems to be the background, generating so-called ‘illusory contours’ that complete the image.

Interactive Advertising Areas
Back-lit advertising areas in the foyer draw attention to what the individual shops sell, reacting with different light intensity to visitors’ movements. The movements are filmed and transformed by software into a discreet play of lights that animates the wall, thus heightening awareness to the advertising messages.

Overhead Lighting Provides Rhythm and Harmony
Inside the mall, the overhead lighting assures function-related and space-related structuring and focusing. The ceiling has a total area of 10 000 m2. It is equipped with a cylindrically shaped grid made of aluminium. In some areas, several cylinders are equipped with lighting elements, forming either rings or circular fields that serve as lights. The inner sides of the cylinders assure the optimum reflection of the integrated light.
In all, 757 downlights und 21 297 LEDs have been installed, which create a different lighting situation depending on how they are mixed. In the elongated, heavily frequented connective tracts of the shopping area, the overhead lighting creates daylight-like conditions thanks to the higher proportion of LEDs. Through the mixing of the LEDs’ cold daylight white and the downlights’ warmer neutral white, the light has a different colour temperature and impact depending on the angle from which it is viewed. When you look upwards, it seems as if the sun is shining on the reflecting cylindrical elements equipped with one LED each. Not only does the light fields’ shape correspond to that of the round skylights through which daylight is introduced into the mall at central points, but there is also a correspondence in respect of the light’s impact. The shops, with their far warmer lighting, are differentiated from this. The ceiling lighting above the bistro area is also warmer, thus inviting visitors to linger.

Flexible Signage
In every part of the Mall, visitors obtain orientation assistance and information from static and digital signage, which is partially enhanced by the use of different colours: in the underground garage, in the transitional areas and along all the pathways. This includes the wall signage, the underground garage, the rings with pictograms that have been installed above head-height and the digital media steles for information and advertising purposes.
The advertising columns are equipped on both sides with high density 42″ LCD screens placed on top of one another and with customised software that together allow great flexibility as regards content. They can be directly controlled, centrally administered and can be supplied on several levels with a wide variety of media: text, images or video that are transmitted in real time. If need arises, they could also be used to introduce rhythm into the space or to create visual effects, e.g. if they take on a colour that changes dynamically in response to external influences.
The diversity of the applications means that the ‘Stücki’ Mall can react very fast to new needs and ideas. For Valentin Spiess – the founder and CEO of iart interactive – this is always vital in the development of special solutions. “The media solutions we create for publicly accessible spaces generally need to have high quality design and technical characteristics that are geared to the long term. Therefore it is important to select robust technical components that permit subsequent adaptations in respect of content. So we are always very thorough in the stage of the evaluation process. If the soft and hardware available on the market do not exactly meet our requirements, we adapt them as far as possible. In that way, we ensure that users enjoy the necessary flexibility and can always remain up to date.“

Interactive 3D Model
The media steles are placed along the pathways in such a manner that information is always within visitors’ field of view. The optimum spatial placement was tested by means of an interactive virtual 3D model of the Mall developed by iart interactive. This proved to be an ideal approach for the development process: the media’s relationship to the surrounding space could be taken into account even though the building had not been completed. Design suggestions and exact placement could be tested in the virtual Mall and discussed in a focused way with clients and partners.

Project documentation for download

Press reports in English:
Highway on page 13

Shopping Centre Stücki, Basel
Corporate Lighting, signage and advertising spaces

Client
Jelmoli Real Estate Development AG

Customer
HRS Hauser Rutishauser Suter AG

Services iart
Idea and preliminary study for the mall media
Conception, design and planning mall lighting
Technical investigations and test setup on-site
Programming and implementation

Domains
Guidance system / visitor guidance
Promotion areas
Corporate lighting
Corporate naming
Lighting mall

Project Partners: Concept and Design
Diener & Diener Architects, Basle, Architecture
Diener & Diener Architects, Berlin, Mall design
ZMIK designers GmbH, Product design of signage and media steles
Jörg Kühni, Graphic concept of basement car park

Project Partners: Realisation of Media Steles and Interactive Light Boxes
Westiform AG
tegoro solutions ag

Realisation (Together with iart)
Leurocom, Installation of LED façade
Regent Beleuchtungskörper AG, Realisation of lighting
Westiform AG, Static signage
tegoro solutions ag, Installation and controlling of media installations

Project Duration
2 years

Exhibition Area
35 000 m2

LED façade

The media façade of the Shopping Centre Stücki was honoured with an iF communication design award 2010.

Media columns in the mall

Static signage

Ceiling lighting

Part of ceiling lighting

Interactive advertising wall

Signage in garage

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