Surfing the Prairie: Sound Waves Crash in Stillwater, Oklahoma
Keep your eyes peeled or at least open for the next issue of Event Design magazine. Our Kicker Visitors Center will be in there somewhere. A half page blurb? A three page spread? The editors have been tight lipped but we’re hoping for solid coverage.
Our Exhibits and Environments group here at Switch sometimes seems to exist in another time zone from the rest of the company. Witness, this Kicker project began as an idea in 2006 and was finally completed in February of 2009! Long story. It was by all accounts a success: productive working relationship, happy client, good design, healthy bottom line. Here’s a quick look at what it was all about.
Kicker wanted to engage, immerse and inform a range of visitors from local schoolchildren to global business partners. The exhibits had to express the quality, technical prowess, swagger and fun that is the Kicker Brand. Our work needed to compliment a new steel and glass architectural addition to their headquarters in Stillwater, OK. while showcasing Kicker’s fantastically designed audio components. When we started, this new building only existed on paper. Kicker’s vibe is exuberant and muscular, more like Samurai armor than audio equipment. We gave each exhibit its own look and personality, from understated to lyrical to architectonic to downright aggressive, with Kicker’s Brand personality reflected throughout.
Once you walk through the entry doors, motion sensors trigger the Speaker Wall, an interactive sculpture comprised of 19 synchronized 15” subwoofers suspended along the wall in the form of a sound wave. Rather than immediately blast visitors with a wall of sound – wait for it – this whimsical greeting sends low voltage signals that activate the speaker membranes causing them to noticeably vibrate in a variety of pre-programmed sequences. From a few feet away the quiet air displacement actually rustles your hair!
Using graphics and multiple interactive elements the four Tower exhibits tell the colorful Kicker story – their speaker technology, company history, innovation and product development. Taking full advantage of the atrium’s height, they rise 11 feet high, radiating out from 4 tapered columns, arrayed like identical mini skyscrapers with different graphic facades.
Measuring 40 feet in length, the Art of the Install exhibit details the importance of a proper audio system installation. It follows the sweep of the window wall arc inviting leisurely exploration with its low-key presence along the perimeter.
The Wall of Boom is the elephant in the room, the biggest and loudest saved for last – of course. Part product display, part hands-on demonstration and all sound-and- fury, it is anchored on the far wall. Standing over 14 feet tall and 20 feet wide, it showcases 28 subs, 46 speakers and 18 amps. The cresting wave-like form holds the promise of a thunderous crash and with the press of the touch-screen controller, it delivers, vibrating nearby glass windows into rippling panes of viscous goo. While the design tries to respect the building, the subwoofers make no such promise.
Despite the range of work that went into this project from conceptualization, storytelling, graphic design, exhibit design, construction drawings, fabrication, printing and installation, Switch did almost all the work in house. Our outside help consisted of an AV technical specialist, an interpretive writer and an illustrator for a special comic book sequence.
