Communication & Social Relations RMIT University, 2010
Authors:
1. Marcin Nagorski
2. Arthur McCarthy
3. Chung Wennie
4. Hui Peng
1. Video Billboard Recent architecture in Melbourne has been more adventurous than ever before in the past. Building designs in particular have begun to incorporate technology into their structures and facades. The APN Outdoors advertising billboard is as much an advertisers dream as it is a design marvel. It is an aesthetically pleasing LED screen mounted across the street from one of Australia’s busiest train stations. Appearing (from the left to the right) to be made of smaller LED blocks that build to make up the whole it is designed to be a technological marvel as well as a billboard. It’s image quality is almost unaffected by weather and viewing angle and it contrasts greatly against it’s host, the Young and Jackson hotel building. Although the billboard is mounted onto an older building, if one looks right at home, giving the entire building a more “modern” look. Krajina (2009) describes this effect on the façade of a building as “liquid”, the architectural surface of a city is now in a state of constant change. The incorporation of a screen such as the one on Flinders Street into the physical facade of a building creates the opportunity to breathe a new life into the whole of a city. “Light” has always been one of the main factors that gives any city life (Krajina, 2009). These screens offer a new form of light, adding movement to it, and creating a new constantly changing and shifting life within the city.