Cocor Luxury Store

Daktronics Technology Catapults Bucharest Luxury Store’s Media Façade Into Europe’s Second Largest

The Challenge

Cocor Luxury Store is one of the oldest and best known department stores in downtown Bucharest, Romania.

Developers sought to upgrade both the interior and exterior of the existing building to reaffirm its position as a leading retail center.

Cocor wanted to create a spectacular advertising display system that would enable the luxury store the flexibility to present a nearly unlimited amount images and information. This would then not only create customer excitement and promote the building and its tenants, but also help revitalize and rejuvenate the
downtown area in Bucharest.

The Daktronics Solution

What came next was Cocor's personal take on 'mediatecture', a new concept of architecture where buildings are coalesced with digital media screens. On December 1, 2008, Cocor unveiled its extraordinary outdoor LED display system, contracted, built, and installed by Daktronics. The project marks the largest installation by one display vendor (Daktronics) at a single building in continental Europe and stands an impressive second to London’s Piccadilly Circus in sheer size.

The entire system comprises of 13 Daktronics LED video displays equaling a total surface of 560 square meters (6,205 sq. ft.). The main LED display, measuring approximately 24 meters high by 12 meters wide, spans roughly five stories tall from the top floor down the front of the building. A two-story tall display measuring approximately 7 meters high by 12 meters wide sits to the left of the main display on
the top of the building. Both of the displays incorporate fullcolor pixels on 23 millimeter center-to-center spacing.

Five, double-sided, one-story tall 'fin' displays stairstep down from the west side of the Cocor building, one per floor spaced out horizontally. The 16 millimeter spaced LED displays extend out from the building and measure approximately 5 meters high by 3 meters wide each.

Adding to the already spectacular media façade is a Daktronics freeform video element display. Located underneath the double-sided displays on the side of the building and measuring approximately 3 meters high by 20 meters wide, the display is used primarily for depicting the Cocor MediaChannel brand and creating dynamic color washes, text, and animations.

During the December unveiling, reporters from CNN and numerous newspapers, photographers, and press people from all across Europe were treated to an immersive show with content provided by Keyframe® Creative Services, a creative service division of Daktronics. Cocor chose the creative services division as their preferred supplier of content for the system. To date, Keyframe has provided 18 separate pieces of content with some pieces incorporating all 13 displays, including logos for Cocor Channel, Cocor Luxury Store and Cocor Spa Hotel.

Cocor MediaChannel manages the display system and dedicates half of the broadcast space to brands having signed leasing contracts with Cocor Luxury Store, the financial market, cultural events, social campaigns, tourist information, live TV broadcasts, and campaigns using interactive access from a mobile phone or Internet through WiFi and Bluetooth. The other half is sold to local advertising companies.

In the past, media façades generally contained photo prints, texts and poems, or abstract images—all instances of a somewhat static form of communication. The façade of the future communicates interactively—using colors, lights, actions, and videos. Implementing digital technology onto buildings allow the advertiser the outlet to develop a unique connection between the audience and the architecture. The Cocor Luxury store—and its innovative media wall—represent the façade of the future.

Equipment Description
Daktronics PS-23 LED video display
Matrix: 1024 x 512
Spacing: 23 mm (.90") centers
Dimensions: 23.5 m x 11.75 m
(77'3" x 38'6")

Daktronics PS-23 LED video display
Matrix: 288 x 512
Spacing: 23 mm (.90") centers
Dimensions: 6.6 m x 11.75 m
(27'9" x 38'6")

Daktronics PS-16 LED video display
(Qty: 10)
Matrix: 288 x 192
Spacing: 16 mm (.65") centers
Dimensions: 4.6 m x 3.1 m
(15'0" x 10'0")

Daktronics PXS-62 LED pixel elements
Matrix: 48 x 320
Spacing: 62 mm (.49") centers
(989 individual elements)