Client: Beacon Capital Partners

Overview

At 44 Montgomery Street in San Francisco, a lobby becomes a canvas and passersby the paintbrushes. As people walk past the reactive media installation, they become digital paintbrushes, trailing a colored path across the display. As more and more people fill the lobby, the media fills with brushstrokes, becoming more colorful and dynamic. When two people cross paths, the colors mix and swirl around each other, creating new colors and unexpected patterns.

Goals

Located at one of the busiest intersections in San Francisco’s Financial District, 44 Montgomery Street needed a lobby as bright and dynamic as the tenants that pass through it. ESI designed a reactive media installation for the lobby that responds to the movement of passersby, making the space feel spacious and alive. ESI’s design approach utilizes the horizontal orientation of the lobby and creates a bright, vibrant contrast to the largely monochrome space. The new design enhances the experience of existing tenants and will attract new business by reasserting 44 Montgomery’s identity as a San Francisco destination.

Additional Information

The media supports two different “brush” types: a soft-edged, fluid Organic Brush and a hard-edged, tightly bound, Geometric Brush. The brush size grows as visitors get closer to the canvas, creating a mixture of heavy and light streaks as crowds move through the lobby.