Opposite the Gautrain station on the Oxford Road thoroughfare, the iconic Rosebank Link building features a unique collaboration between Paragon Architects, Redefine Properties (the building owners) and Primary Colours.
The Rosebank Link has a dramatic full-colour LED video screen that has been custom-designed and engineered to be an integral part of the building’s fabric, and to contribute to the edifice’s striking appearance. This ‘smart lighting’ has a total length of 226 metres and stretches across 15 floors of the building.
Not only is Primary Colour’s Rosebank screen one of the largest LED screens in South Africa, it is also the country’s largest operational example of a strip screen display. The building’s exterior lights – which, like the screen content, can be controlled and manipulated remotely, are not made of individual lights but are in fact narrow strips of video screen.
Primary Colours directors Ashendra Singh and Grant Neill explained, ’Using this new DigiLED technology, we’ve been able to create an exceptionally flat screen that offers maximum viewing angles to both pedestrians and drivers using this major city artery. With no off-angle colour shift, this new screen offers advertisers a unique way to tell their stories in the most impactful way possible.’
With HD 720 resolution and the ability to display 16 million colours, the complete screen measures 18 metres wide and 7 metres high (1728 pixels wide x 745 pixels high). Geometric-pattern cladding was used to underline the fact that the screen is an authentic part of the building’s fabric.
While the screen itself represents cutting edge technology, it is arguably the building’s strip lighting (attached to the Rosebank Link via watertight perforations in the building façade) that is the most exciting aspect of this project. Most impressive when viewed at night, the ribbons of coloured video displays are designed to reflect from the building’s edges, giving a more harmonious ‘wash’ effect.
PRIMARY COLOURS primarycolours.co.za
