Christie Technology Creates "Heart of the Office" with Stairway Collaboration Area at Condé Nast International

One of the world's largest media companies selected Christie for both its LED video wall and the content management system.

Renowned for its portfolio of magazines including Vogue, GQ, Wired, and many more, Condé Nast International is making an even greater push into digital media and recently added two floors of London office space to house the expansion.

The two floors feature contemporary workspaces including open-concept offices, huddle spaces, boardrooms, and designated quiet rooms. At the heart of the space sits "The Well" -- a stunning stairwell-cum-informal presentation space featuring a 6 x 14 Christie Velvet Apex Series video wall with a 2.5mm pixel pitch. Content for the display is managed by Christie Pandoras Box and processed by a Christie Spyder X20.

MiX Consultancy worked with MCM Architecture Ltd., and Focus 21 (now part of AVMI) to ensure the technical aspects met the overall vision.

"This building represents Condé Nast International's digital future," said Deepak Parma, design director, MCM. "Looking at the floorplate early on, we realized that this building is ultimately a series of pockets where people work, and what it needed was a 'heart space' to bring people together, to collaborate, to celebrate, and to inspire them. The stairwell is the natural centerpiece of the building. Once we knew we were going to work with a multi-storey building, we came up with some ideas of having this staircase which would double up as bleacher seating, enabling not only presentations, but also town hall meetings."

"We looked at projection, LCD, tiled screens, and ultra-thin bezel video wall options," said Phil Hallchurch, AV consultant, MiX Consultancy. Given the architecture and what they hoped to achieve for a collaboration area, Hallchurch said it quickly became clear that Christie's LED technology would provide the greatest impact.

"We have a good relationship with Christie and it came down to knowing that we could coordinate help when we needed it as the project progresses," said Hallchurch. "There's a strong local Christie presence in terms of support, which we knew was going to be important. The Apex (LED) product has remote power supplies which are redundant, so if one fails the other one kicks in. If there's a failure, it's serviced somewhere other than the wall. It (Apex Series) is also front serviceable, so we were able to build it into a recess without worrying about accessing it from behind later or having to make access panels. All those things led us towards Christie."

To create a powerful yet simple content management system, MiX Consultancy, as recommended by Christie, brought Amigo on board as the content management and creative partner. Amigo then utilized the Spyder X20 and Pandoras Box to create a robust content management and processing ecosystem.

"Those pixels for the videowall are completely custom," said Hallchurch. "Amigo worked with Condé Nast International to create a template structure, and used Spyder X20 and Pandoras Box, but also creating 'middleware,' a custom interface for the digital teams to drop their content onto in a nice and easy to use way allowing content to be pulled into a slideshow which is displayed on the videowall."

According to senior staff at Condé Nast International, the new collaborative work environment is having a powerful impact on employees.

"The team managed to create more than just a stairwell," said Aidan Geary, director of operations, Condé Nast International Digital. "They created the beating heart of the office. The impact has been two-fold: the media wall is not just arresting in its beauty, it has become a place where teams spontaneously meet to hold presentations and get feedback from others. We saw an instant change in how people worked."

"The screen played a pivotal part in that; it's the center point of the space, and everyone walks through this and gets to see the impact of the screen," added Parma. "The Christie system is very smart because it comes in a tile format, the maintenance point is easy, and the heat load isn't very much. The client realized that this was the perfect solution."