Coming close to the city, a dramatic radiance of visual delights begins to appear on the approaching buildings all spectacularly lit up with glowing and blinking huge signs everywhere, all simultaneously promoting the various hotel / casino resorts all along its streets. You might be thinking Las Vegas, but the skyline in front of you is a surprise, because it's the cityscape of Macau, an island off of Mainland China, that has been for decades, a gaming Mecca of the Orient.
In exploring its entertainment roots, Macau as most cities have in recent years, is reinventing itself. Here, many hotel / casinos have taken a page or so from the Las Vegas architectural playbook where each new hotel entertainment complex has added all the kaleidoscopic color and dynamic signage it can gather to proclaim, "We are the hotel for you." One of the latest spectacular destination entries in Macau was developed as a joint venture between Melco International Development (Hong Kong) and Crown Entertainment (Melbourne) who together created the City of Dreams hotel / casino complex which integrates hospitality, gaming, retail and entertainment into a single, one-of-a-kind resort center.
Dreamy
City of Dreams distinguishes itself in several ways, most specifically with a unique architectural signature as explained by Geoffrey Benham, Creative Director of Melco Crown Entertainment. "Rather than providing a single hotel with all our guests in one building," says Benham, "We offer four distinct hotels including the Crown Towers (Ultimate Luxury hotel for discerning guests), a Hard Rock Hotel (Fun and hip for the young and young at heart), and the Grand Hyatt Macau (two distinct towers for business and leisure guests alike). The complex also includes over 400,000 square feet of gaming area, a unique, world-class attraction known as 'The Bubble', the 'Vquarium' (a virtual aquarium showcasing 'real' mermaids), the Boulevard, (a chic, lifestyle retail precinct), and a full spectrum of entertaining food and beverage venues." In early 2010 world-renowned Producer and Director Franco Dragone and Dragone Entertainment opened a breathtaking new show, housed in a 2,000-seat state-of-the-art theatre incorporating one of the most impressive commercial pools in the world.
The City of Dreams complex was designed by Arquitectonica (Hong Kong) as a fluid urban structure with an extensive and coordinated media facade coverage that dominates all four of the hotel buildings. One of the challenges of its overall architecture said Arquitectonica Associate Director Matthew McCallum was "balancing the overall building design into an integrated look that tied the entire hotel / casino complex into a singular presence. One way to present the commonality of the hotel structure was in using similar materials and designs that continuously reappeared on all four hotels." McCallum continued, "This was done with the use of horizontal and vertical exterior fins placed on all the buildings. The fins were used on the building cladding and presented to "catch' the ambient lighting around the buildings, to cast shadows and help reinforce the design of each building. There was also the installation of a series of media facades, (one on each hotel tower) which provided a unique architectural integration of unifying all four hotels into a singular destination complex. The collection of towers combine to create a series of unique video "screens" that goes way beyond a typical x and y configuration, as the screens combine HD video with full color, abstract graphic animations into a mesmerizing display of content that flows seamlessly from building to building."
"As much as having images appear on the buildings, we were also concerned with how they 'fit' on the buildings and how well the images moved from building to building," said Benham.
Creating the vision
The City of Dreams media facades were created by StandardVision (Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Macau), a company specializing as an integrator of content, technology and design of media facades. The City of Dreams efforts were spearheaded by Adrian Velicescu, CEO and Creative Director of StandardVision, "We worked in the early stage development of City of Dreams to integrate the media lighting with the architectural design and ultimately the brand image that Melco/PBL wanted for the project."
"Our client wanted to depart from the well known neon image of flashing Vegas lights" said Velicescu. "In developing this media facade design, the main desire was to create a momentum of content that moved between the four facades and invited a sense of exploration for the viewers. This way it functioned as a conversation piece and the ultimate 'not-to-miss' Macau destination. Instead of looking at the project as four distinct buildings we expended on the architect vision of unifying the architectural design through the use of content that is synchronized across the four facades."
As for the media facade imagery, to "open" the building, StandardVision has created four themed pieces (galactic starscapes, flaming air effects, underwater and event-based special effect imagery) and has plans to create other special themed content for certain holidays and special events. The content strategy is to have a flexible library of live action media and interactive content that can be posted on the building and shown at different times of the year as desired.
With all of the City of Dreams buildings lit up and viewable even from a mile away, the draw of City of Dreams begins even before visitors arrive. As visitors approach Macau, its overly bright glow radiates the promise of good luck and fantastic entertainment, all centered in the City of Dreams as a beacon of good times to come.
