HoloCube

The brief

The New Jersey Hall of Fame had no building of its own. It wanted a permanent presence at Newark Liberty International Airport that would stop a traveller and hold their attention, using life-size holograms of its inductees. ARHT Media supplied the holographic technology; Holman Exhibits was engaged to design and build the enclosure around it. That enclosure had to keep the image readable in a brightly lit concourse, stand out against shop signs and departure boards, meet the fire and life-safety rules of a federal airport terminal, and break down small enough to ship from Toronto and assemble airside without a crane. We had about four months from appointment to installation.

The idea

Treat the enclosure as a light trap, not a box with a hole in it. The viewing window sits behind a large, downward-angled sheet of non-glare acrylic that reflects overhead light away from the viewer's eyeline, inside a deep matte black core. Around that core, the selected Space Cargo scheme, a bold graphic reading of a shipping container in gloss yellow cladding, carries down the length of a concourse and borrows the language of freight, which feels at home in an airport. The yellow draws people in; the black lets the hologram look solid.

What I did

1. Led the creative direction of the enclosure from first concepts to the selected Space Cargo scheme.

2. Owned its technical development: the light-trap geometry, the fire-rated material and finish specification, the sectional breakdown that let a seamless form be crated and reassembled, and the integration of the holographic display, touchscreen, and audio.

3. Chaired coordination with ARHT Media, and oversaw fabrication in Holman's Toronto shop and the airside installation and commissioning.