Electrosonic has received the 2024 Commercial Integration Award Winner for Best Immersive Experience Project for its work at View Boston!
View Boston is a 59,000-square-foot observation deck experience spanning two floors, elevators and welcome and finale areas of Boston’s iconic Prudential Center. The immersive experience connects visitors to the city while providing an interactive planning resource that enables them to discover the city’s diverse offerings.
Breathtaking views integrated with immersive, interactive placemaking technologies such as virtual itinerary building, a projection-mapped 3D city model, virtual viewers and a 270-degree theater create a vibrant, highly personalized visitor experience that is accessible throughout. The guest journey begins with projected content highlighting Boston’s most iconic attractions. They can also join an immersive elevator experience showcasing the city’s sights and sounds.
Electrosonic, in partnership with JRA, Lightborne, Float 4, Christie Digital and 7thSense, took responsibility for blue sky technology concepts, audiovisual and control system design, detailed engineering, system integration, project management and training.
How the Immersive Experience Came Together
Photo courtesy of Electrosonic.
The vision of the owners, BXP, was to create an immersive, informative space that would connect visitors to Boston, inspire them to explore more of the city — and encourage them to return to a destination that was unforgettable.
The panoramic city views from the observation deck provided a memorable attraction in its own right. However, the owners wanted to go further. They wanted to consolidate the information that would connect visitors to Boston into an easily accessible immersive hub — a space that would give guests a greater sense of the city and cater for their diverse interests and needs.
The owners recognized that experiential technology would be an essential element in communicating the spirit of Boston and its many attractions. However, the technology also had to accessible, so that the entire experience would be inclusive for every visitor. To bring this ambitious vision to reality, the owners needed a team that could design and deliver an immersive, interactive and accessible technology solution that would transform the way visitors connect to a city.
Delivering the creative vision necessitated top-tier expertise in digital signage, interactivity, projection mapping, immersive technologies and data-driven personalization. They also needed a partner with expertise in observation deck experiences that they could trust with a project of this scale.
Elevating the Observation Deck
Electrosonic points to its proven track record in delivering immersive experiences in observation decks and many different business sectors. According to Electrosonic, its deep technical experience with designing solutions for complex, large-scale, digital activation projects brought the View Boston experience to life.
Boston 365 is a 50-foot-wide 3D scale model of the city that celebrates the spirit of Boston through imagery and animation. Spectacular projection-mapping recreates iconic events like the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Boston Marathon or dramatically reveals the changing seasons through snow falling, leaves blowing or flowers blooming.
360-Degree Virtual Viewers
On the 52nd floor, guests engage with the cityscape through interactive Virtual Viewers. Ten interactive Viewers with 32-inch touchscreens are mounted on a 360-degree rotatable base. As guests point the Viewer at a specific location on the horizon, they see an augmented-reality landscape on the screen that reveals what they can do at that site through animation, illustrations and local information.
For visually-impaired guests, there is an inclusive installation that allows them to experience Boston sites by touch instead of viewing them. Four stations also feature audio description of the sites the guests touch.
Virtual Itinerary-Building
Throughout View Boston, guests can collect detailed information that forms a basis for planning future visits to the sites they select. Guests simply select a location and use a barcode reader to attach the information to their physical or virtual ticket on their phones.
Guests can collect information at the Virtual Viewers or from fourteen LED touchscreens along the wall of the Explore Boston exhibit. They can also finalize their itineraries at one of 12 kiosks equipped with 32-inch LED touchscreens, barcode readers and speakers in the Finale space.
Photo courtesy of Electrosonic.
Innovative engineering, expert audiovisual design, seamless integration, rigorous testing and collaborative efforts with partners were instrumental in overcoming technical challenges to deliver an experience that sets new standards for observation decks. Delivering the creative vision necessitated top-tier expertise in digital signage, interactivity, projection mapping, immersive technologies and data-driven personalization.
Projection mapping of the Boston 365 3D city model, for example, entailed the creation of one of the largest and most complex projection mapping structures Electrosonic has undertaken. Projection mapping on the 3D city model required precise synchronization of 31 projectors to ensure alignment of content across all displays, the company reveals.
Seamless Collaboration
Successful implementation required meticulous collaboration with Christie, 7thSense and content producers Lightborne to guarantee precise mapping and alignment. The complexity was comparable to a scientific experiment, as we created a dynamic display that could be rotated and spun nearly 360 degrees to showcase all aspects of Boston. We incorporated rotary encoders and similar technologies to track the movement and provide real-time feedback to the computers.
Electrosonic provided projectors and related equipment to the content producers for initial testing to assess the functionality and feasibility of the model. Skilled engineering was also essential to integrate the systems and cabling of this complex, large-scale project seamlessly within an existing infrastructure.
Collaboration was key to the success of the overall project as Ryan McAllister, creative director with Lightborne explains. “But, I also want to say that for this project, it was a whole team of people, not only everyone at Lightborne but all the technical and creative partners. Managing all of the intricacies of a project like this is really a huge lift because the creative is the tip of the iceberg. What’s underneath the surface is all this technical and creative work that went into it.”
Electrosonic helped create an outstanding visitor attraction at View Boston through innovative immersive technology, fused with architecture and storytelling that complements the stunning panoramic Boston skyline. Thanks to its accessibility, the attraction also enables a wide-ranging, diverse audience to immerse themselves in the city’s rich offerings.
The technology elements integrate seamlessly with the real-time view of the city to enhance guests’ perspectives of the awe-inspiring skyline and capture the essence of Boston’s spirit. Additionally, the combination of stunning panoramic city views and immersive technology has created a vibrant space that connects visitors to Boston and encourages them to find out more.
Enhancing Visitors’ Perspective
At View Boston, the immersive technology provided by Electrosonic differentiates the venue and redefines city exploration. The owners recognized that most observation decks are just about the view — an unusual way to see a city. The experiential technologies at View Boston add new levels of engagement and entertainment to the stunning views, making the venue a destination that will keep visitors coming back.
This is important when growing familiarity with digital technology has raised visitors’ expectations of venues like observation decks. Justin Rink, general manager of View Boston, comments, “As the innovative and digital landscape continues to shape our world, View Boston embraces cutting-edge technology to offer an unparalleled sensory experience. Our commitment to integrating tech elements seamlessly into View Boston not only enhances visitors’ perspectives of the awe-inspiring skyline but also captures the essence of Boston’s progressive spirit.”
