88 Kearny

General Contractors

Principal Builders

Makers

PAW Architectural Woodwork

Photographer

Jason O’Rear

Finishes

Existing Marble Flooring
Kaswell Endgrain Oak
Exotic Veneer Pal Dao
Rigidized Stamped Metal Panels
Kaynemaile Architectural Mesh

FF&E

Geiger Clamshell Chair

Consultants, Engineers,
Sub-contractors

Diversified Systems, Inc.
Banks Landl
DetaiLED
Archetype Lighting

88 Kearny is a renovated office building lobby transformed by a digital interactive experience. The original space was a 120feet long, oddly proportioned corridor that felt like an afterthought though it was the building’s primary entrance. It was essential to the client to attract tenants in the active tech leasing market but not alienate more corporate tenants who traditionally occupied the building.

The solution was to turn its weakness into its strength and make the journey through the lobby a delightful, energizing, and constantly new experience. The approach was to turn the corridor into a digital art gallery, which revealed itself only when viewed axially and walking directly through the lobby. From outside the building, you can see a dynamic image. As you enter the lobby, the image displayed on twenty-five 23-foot LED screens fragments into strips and interacts with you as you pass it then recompose again as you enter the elevator lobby. Leaving the lobby provides a different experience that begins with the entire image, then sees only fragments, and subsequently only metal panels softly illuminated by the then invisible digital canvases.

The team designed and produced a library of bespoke digital content programmed to change and respond to lobby traffic with motion-sensitive technology. The real-time dynamic content maintains relevancy day to day, celebrating Bay Area culture, including events and holidays, natural scenery that shifts with the changing seasons and time of day, and ambient moments that showcase artistic process. Although much of the content is digitally generated, commissioned photography and time-lapse footage were also used to complete the multitude of unique thematic scenes. The content and the architecture were developed together, creating a space that both delights and responds to tenants. Our goal was that tenants and their guests would never experience the same walk twice.