Observation Deck Virtual City Tour and Interactive Installations

Skyspace LA

Los Angeles, CA

Movement-driven insights, information, and excitement for Los Angeles' most posh observation deck.

The Ask

The new owners of LA's iconic U.S. Bank Tower wanted to create LA's first – and tallest – must-see destination, with digital experiences that made the trip to the top floor as exciting and memorable as the view itself.

The Journey

Make the most of unique and challenging architectural features on the transfer floor where visitors change elevators on their journey up. Create memorable digital touchpoints that leverage the floor's location and the building's unique siting in downtown LA.

The Solution

A series of three interactive experiences that appeal to an Instagram-focused audience: an infinity mirror that takes your breath away, a two-story projection that builds excitement for the last stretch of the upward trip, and a fully immersive 360-degree motion-tracking theater that lets visitors orient themselves to LA's crown jewels.

The 360 Landscape lets visitors interact with an immersive virtual landscape filled with hidden secrets, simply by walking around the space.

Look Around You – an Immersive Exploration of LA's iconic sights

The first experience is the 360 Landscape, a 50’ x 30’ elliptical space which surrounds visitors with the topography of Los Angeles, as seen from the viewpoint of the tower. An array of glistening gems hover above the landscape, beckoning users to discover their secrets.

A custom-fabricated railing hides a collection of LEDs which animate in front of visitors as they approach, drawing them toward the projection. Visitors move around the immersive experience space at their own pace to crack open each gem and uncover playfully-animated graphics for points of interest that are visible from the top floor.

The ellipse also includes a highly-specialized video mode, facilitating playback of custom-produced content at up to 11,520 x 1,200 resolution, synchronized across two separate walls.

A close up view of the immersive experience showing an animated icon of a point of interest that can be seen from the observation deck.

To Infinity and Below – a digitally-enhanced infinity mirror provides the illusion of a 54-story drop.

An interactive infinity mirror appears to lead into the depths.

Perception of Height

Our next attraction celebrates the height of the tower: a one-of-a-kind Infinity Mirror mimics the unique shape and lights at the crown of the building. LEDs in the fixture respond to visitor presence and animate in a spirited fashion.

Color schemes can be easily changed by operations staff to celebrate holidays and local athletic team victories, among other themes.

The effect appears to drop off into infinity, leaving the true depth a mystery to guests standing on top of the structural glass as they snap epic selfies.

A visitor interacts with an interactive shadow wall which tracks their movement on a projection-mapped wall.

The canonical "shadow wall" takes on a new life with playful, effervescent bubbles that mimic movements and capture playful poses.

Up, Up and Away

Our final interactive visitor attraction prepares visitors mentally to elevate up the remaining 16 floors to level 70. The Reflection Wall experience playfully tracks visitors’ body shapes with thousands of effervescent digital bubbles. A timed “flash” freezes their poses for posterity (and picture-taking) before casting their bubbly avatars upward on magical winds.

Many visitors walk through the immersive experience and explore the projection-mapped points of interest that can be seen from the observation deck.

Your body is the interface

Guests interact with all of the experiences by simply moving throughout the space to investigate a point of interest. Our custom-built motion sensing and tracking platform turns movement and position into magical responses, no learning curve required.

Visitors use their bodies to interact with the immersive experience, which uses the position of their bodies to display different visuals on the projection-mapped wall.

Prototyping the position-driven feedback mechanism integrated into the custom-fabricated railing.

A behind-the-scenes shot of the projection mapping on the immersive experience.
A behind-the-scenes shot of the projection mapping on the immersive experience.
A floor projection instructs visitors how to interact wit h the interactive shadow wall.
A close-up shot of the interactive infinity mirror.