The Canon
Project
Hong Kong
Canon Hong Kong has its service headquarters in Oterprise Square, a prominent building on the Tsim Sha Tsui peninsula overlooking Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. On the roof of the building Canon have installed the largest rotating neon sign in Asia, such is its visual presence, the building is popularly referred to as ‘The Canon Building’.
OUR BRIEF
Canon Hong Kong has its service headquarters in Oterprise Square, a prominent building on the Tsim Sha Tsui peninsula overlooking Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. On the roof of the building Canon have installed the largest rotating neon sign in Asia, such is its visual presence, the building is popularly referred to as ‘The Canon Building’.
Canon is a company that takes its position as a corporate citizen seriously. When phase two of the Victoria Harbour Light show (Symphony of Lights) was launched to include the Kowloon side of the harbour, Canon enthusiastically supported the scheme. The concept was to utilise the south facing facade as a media wall that could participate in the daily 20 minute light show and at other times provide Canon with a facility for entertainment, participation in Hong Kong’s many festive occasions and a vehicle for promotional messages for Canon itself.
The brief held several challenges. The lighting system would have to be highly efficient; Canon have a corporate objective with regard to their consumption of energy.Â
The building was also fully tenanted thus no penetrations of the facade would be acceptable. The new lighting had to be implemented without any inconvenience to the tenants either during the installation or the many years of operation.
The building did offer some assistance however in the form of horizontal aluminium sunshade fins which occur at the top of every vision glass panel in the non unitised curtain wall. The fins provided an ideal and it is arguable, the only possible mounting surfaces for the proposed lighting system. As a result, a horizontal matrix design evolved based on the physical opportunity provided by the architecture.
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Another important issue arose at this point - viewing angles!
The Canon Building is perched on the very centre of the Kowloon peninsula, over-looking a southerly view of Victoria Harbour and views from Hong Kong Island that extend to the east and west. This meant that the display would be potentially viewed from a span of 180 degrees. Under normal technical circumstances this would not be achievable as LED light fixtures generally could not provide the point sources brightness or the wide viewing angles required.
OUR SOLUTION
The illumination Physics DOT became the answer; its spherical lens provided the angular visibility that enables the Canon LED display to be ‘read’ from Causeway Bay in the east to Sheung Wan and beyond in the West. Ferries and harbour cruise vessels also comprise a significant part of the audience and for them the display is visible at very shallow approach angles.
The extreme brightness of the DOT allowed for a design wherein the individual pixels do not need to be place at close proximity to allow images to form. Viewed from any typical distance the pixels blend into a horizontal line. This reduced capital cost and energy consumption.
420 6watt DOTs have been installed in 13 horizontal rows over 14 storeys. The average power consumption is remarkably low at approximately 1250 Watts.
The DOTs were installed with a custom 90 degree bracket. The power drivers for the DOTs were installed with Illuminations Physics outdoor enclosure which has an ingress protection rating of 65.
The lighting system is programmed and operated using Illumination Physics ‘X-Soft’ system.
420 6watt DOTs have been installed in 13 horizontal rows over 14 storeys.
PRODUCTS
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420 x illumination physics DOT 6 were used with special custom mounting bracket.Â
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70 x illumination physics LED Driver HP, six channel outdoor version
Control system
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illumination physics X-soft