Our experience in retail spaces and shopping centres led us to work on this exciting project at The Exchange, Ilford on a £78m mall space. The Exchange sought to promote its catering offer, a dining destination that is positioned down the centre of one of its main through-fares. It had seem the hanging rings we had fabricated and installed at The Mall, in Luton, and wanted to create something similar.
The solution was three hanging rectangles, suspending from the ceiling and internally illuminated using LED lighting. The external and internal face of each structure were dye-sublimated tensioned graphics, that were printed to appear like real wood.
The base of the hanging display was opal acrylic to diffuse the LED down-lights and illuminate the food concession stand below. This project came with its challenges and we were happy to tackle them, including the structural bearing weight of the roof and how to lift the 22-stone structures.
We installed the three displays through two nights with six operatives, four genie lifts a HR12 cherry picker. The 4,200 x 2,400mm displays used our innovative FabriFrame system with dye-sublimated fabric graphics. This approach reduced the weight that would be suspended from the ceiling and meant they could be replaced with different graphics in the future.
To focus the LED lights in the right direction, the internal and external sides were printed onto ‘block-out’ fabric. This fire-retardant material prevents light from passing through it and instead, focusses the light through the 100mm wide opal acrylic base. Centred within each display we suspended a smaller 3,000 x 500mm, double-sided FabriFrame to promote each concession. Following careful planning from the rigging team, the approved suspension plan consisted of 24 cables fixed from the ceiling to 12 points on each display structure using turn-buckles to even the load.
In order to reach the high ceilings within the Exchange, we used a HR12 cherry picker. However, this impressive machinery measured wider than the entrance doors. Knowing this in advance allowed our experienced project management team to arrange for the door to be removed from its frame to accommodate the width of the equipment. The 140 kilo structures were lifted 3400mm from the floor using four genie lifts. We used a suite of laser-levels to ensure that they were positioned accurately. Once at this level height, they were attached to the two-dozen cables, before the lifts were finally removed.
DAVID LISTER