Projects
-
Harlequin
When, in 2011, the Harlequin Shopping Centre wanted a Christmas scheme that strongly reflected its core brand values, it naturally turned to the company that understood these best, having worked together for more than a decade.
The brief provided was that the scheme should be warm and welcoming, friendly, honest, trusted, inspirational and both reliable and exciting. The Harlequin Shopping Centre also required a scheme that was truly individual and unlike any found in other nearby shopping centres. One final requirement was that the scheme should take a grotto as its focal point.
In order to ensure that despite their long association with the Harlequin Shopping Centre, our designers truly understood the space and the wants of the customers, they spent a significant amount of time exploring and assessing the centre; a process which sparked a number of different ideas and concepts.
The bold, eye-catching and beautifully simple scheme that was chosen was themed around a collection of words associated with Christmas, such as ‘MERRY’, ‘NOEL’, ‘HO HO HO’ and of course ‘CHRISTMAS’ itself, transformed into 3D sculptures. Up to 12 metres long, these were installed throughout the centre and rendered in bold, bright, seasonal colours.
There was also no mistaking the centrepiece grotto thanks to the giant letters spelling ‘SANTA’ hanging in space above it. Visitors were treated to an interactive 3D film experience which simulated a roller coaster ride to visit Santa which included snowball fights, Christmas crackers and flying toys.
-
-
Metrocentre
Being invited to create a scheme for Europe’s largest retail and leisure space, Gateshead’s Metrocentre, allowed our designers and engineers the opportunity to think big and create large-scale installations.
The two-storey, tiered layout of the Metrocentre naturally suggested a design that made use of the vertical space to create a theme that visually linked the upper and lower floors and complemented the ledges and pillars that formed the interior architecture.
The chosen scheme featured an arched design that, although suspended from the ceiling, appeared to rest gently on the ledges separating the first and second floors, making them seem to float above the customers. Because the Metrocentre is divided into four large malls, our designers suggested variations on the theme for each one, with the arches in different areas constructed out of different materials.
The Green Mall featured giant baubles in traditional Christmas colour combinations lit by streams of LED lights, while the Blue Mall used a three-metre wide arc of stars made of aluminium and decorated with streamers, ribbons and LED lights.
The Central Mall featured a snowball motif decorated with icicles and iridescent snowflakes, while the Red Mall was garnished with an arch formed from giant, brightly-wrapped and lit Christmas presents. Also featured throughout were the ‘Metrognomes’: 2.5-metre tall characters made from fibreglass.
-
-
Liverpool One
Liverpool One approached us with a requirement for a focal point for the switching on of their Christmas lights.
However, the requirements of Liverpool One went beyond a seasonal display and encompassed the creation of a large space that could be utilised for a range of events and even moved to different locations at other times of the year. In addition, Liverpool One spans 42 acres of the city centre, so the decorative scheme would have to thematically link a number of covered areas and open spaces, each with different characters.
The elegant solution arrived at by our designers was to create an architectural aluminium spaceframe structure supporting a canopy. Placed in the centre of Paradise Place – at the heart of Liverpool One – the frame was surmounted by a sculptural representation of a Christmas tree. The total height of the arrangement was eight metres and required careful calculation, cross-bracing and construction to ensure total safety.
The tree itself was made of aluminium, to combine strength with low weight, and decorated with carefully sequenced LED pea lights. This display was echoed in the colours and shapes of the large-scale decorations used throughout the rest of Liverpool One to create a unified theme.
The spaceframe structure was designed so that each of its supports can be adjusted individually to take account of future use in different locations around Liverpool One at other non-festive times of the year. Lighting and sound systems can be discreetly integrated and altered for specific events.
-
-
Toronto Eaton Centre
Now found across the world, shopping centres were initially a North American phenomenon, where they have built up great retail and social significance. So it is an indication of the level of respect with which our schemes were viewed that we were invited to take part in a competitive tender process to design, create and install a display in Toronto’s prestigious Eaton Centre.
The Eaton Centre is a four-storey retail environment with a beautiful, eye-catching vaulted glass roof. With such an impressive and sizeable arena, our creative team was able to devise a scheme to match and presented the Eaton Centre with a choice of six individual concepts. We were awarded the contract against a number of other North American and European agencies.
Breaking with tradition, we created a theme based around giant floor sculptures rather than more conventional suspended displays. The main focal points of the scheme were dramatic giant reindeer, up to 12 metres in height that customers could walk through as well as around. As a unifying theme, the reindeers were supplemented by stunning cascades of stars suspended from the glass roof and throughout the four floors. All the decorative elements were lit by low-power demand LEDs for a dazzling overall effect.
Because of the distances involved, the shipping schedules required a very tight turnaround on the engineering phase of the project. After further visits to the Eaton Centre and the creation of detailed CAD renders, the giant, sculptural reindeer were constructed of architectural grade aluminium. The majority of the other components were also custom-made, as were more than 70 steel-framed containers to be used for shipping and future storage of all the elements of the scheme.
We arranged all the necessary export permissions and shipping to a Toronto warehouse before overseeing the installation, which was carried out by a subcontractor appointed by the Toronto Eaton Centre.
-
