NPR New Headquarters Goes High-Tech with Unique LED Display Design

WASHINGTON, D.C. – National Public Radio (NPR) is prepared to move into its new corporate headquarters at 1111 North Capitol Street NE. The exterior and lobby have a unique design and will be used as primary methods of communicating NPR news and information to the general public visiting the new high-tech headquarters. The 440,000 square foot building will be the new broadcast home of NPR programming.

The overall design has three separate LED video display technologies and applications: the exterior icon tower, exterior ticker and interior media mosaic. All LED signage was manufactured and supplied by S|N|A.

At the corner of North Capitol Street NE and L Street NE, the LED icon tower rises to a height of 55 feet above the entry and faces both north and south. The tower integrates the latest in S|ThruMedia™, S|N|A's LED transparent display product line. In this case, the S|ThruMedia™ strips are integrated into vertical LED columns. The vertical pitch within the strips is 25 mm, and the strips are spaced 75 mm apart horizontally. The display is 55'0" tall by 2'5" wide and has a physical resolution of 672 x 11 pixels. S|N|A technology processes the imaginary pixels between physical strips so that the imagery is not distorted, making the virtual resolution of the display is 672 x 33 pixels.

"This is a unique integration of the S|ThruMedia™ product line," said Jason Helton, director of North American products for S|N|A. "With the total height and only 11 strips wide, the LED tower is very think, allowing for a variety of display effects and visuals."

Increasing the visual effect, a glass façade was installed in front of the S|ThruMedia™ strips, allowing viewers to see through the iconic structure.

On the exterior wall at NPR's main entrance, a 16 mm pitch S|Video™ LED ticker communicates the latest news and information. The ticker wraps the corner of the building and utilizes a custom corner module to keep the seam as minimal as possible. The ticker is 3'11" tall by 80'9" wide with a resolution of 64 x 1,520 pixels.

Of the three LED installations in the project, the interior LED media mosaic stands apart. The LED mosaic is located in the lobby just inside the entrance and provides visitors a highly visual, interactive experience. There are a total of 15 LED video display screens positioned at various locations in the "grid," which wraps around the lobby wall corner. To provide cohesion to the mosaic, an LED ticker runs the full width of the lobby wall. The LED media mosaic employs a 10 mm pitch S|Video™ product and has over 615,000 physical pixels. The entire space being processed is over 2.75 million pixels.

"The truly creative aspect to the lobby LED design is the fact that all of the various screens are integrated into a single, solid display, and each screen reflects the correct part of the image spatially, depending on its location in the mosaic. The entire space of the lobby wall is being processed as a continuous image, including all of the space where there are no LEDs. For instance, if the content were to show a runner running across the entire display, the top row of displays would show the runner's head, the second tier would show the runner's shirt and the bottom row would show the runner's feet as the runner came across those displays. The LED ticker ties all of these pieces together, as it would capture a part of the runner across the entire display."

Photos of the NPR headquarters digital signage project are at www.snallc.com/projects/npr. You can find more information about S|N|A, S|ThruMedia™ and S|Video™ products at www.snallc.com.

S|N|A, LLC is a turn-key provider of LED digital displays and lighting solutions. S|N|A has managed, fabricated, implemented and installed some of the U.S.'s largest spectacular signs while offering its clients a single source for both indoor and outdoor lighting, text, graphic, and video products. S|N|A relies on more than 300 engineers dedicated to research and development and utilizes one million square feet of space for manufacturing, administrative support and customer service. Sansi has offices throughout North America, including its corporate headquarters in Ballston Lake, NY, satellite offices in New York City, Dallas, Austin, Columbus and Knoxville, as well as administration and manufacturing space in Oklahoma City and Shanghai. For more information about S|N|A call 800.521.4815. You can also follow S|N|A on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.