Professional Lighting & Production - Winter 2019 | Page 23

ROGERS SQUARE
AT THE NOVA CENTRE
Grafton Street
Halifax, NS B3J 2C4
www.novacentre.ca
The Nova Centre is a 1 million-sq.-ft. mixed
development that dominates a good-
sized swath of downtown Halifax. It com-
prises the new Halifax Convention Centre,
a pair of business towers, a soon-to-open
Sutton Place hotel, retail and hospitality
spaces, and underground parking lots
in addition to the European-style shared
street area that is Rogers Square.
The ambitious undertaking – the
largest integrated development project in
Nova Scotia’s history with an expected to-
tal cost exceeding $500 million – is being
spearheaded by Argyle Developments,
a locally-owned firm with an impressive
portfolio of commercial, residential, and
industrial properties in the Halifax Region-
al Municipality (HRM).
“When we started the project, we went
through 12 public consultation sessions in
Halifax,” begins Argyle Developments CEO
Joe Ramia. “One of the things that kept
coming back was, with a project of this
size, they wanted to see a space where
Nova Scotians could connect with each
other and connect with the world.”
While approximately 60 per cent of the
Nova Centre’s total space will be publicly-
accessible, Ramia explains they wanted to
deliver a purpose-built gathering space
to spur those connections and ultimately
“showcase what Nova Scotia has to offer”
through its programming, amenities, and
more.
As they began conceptualizing
how that space might take shape, a
video-based centrepiece emerged as a
hallmark idea. Initially, they considered a
large LED surface on the ceiling and went
so far as to produce some architectural
renderings of how that component would
look in the space.
Months later, though, Ramia and his
team were in Germany on business and
saw a more artistic, abstract-looking
installation of scattered vertical video
screens – one that could be manipulated
and configured in a myriad of ways based
on the content it was relaying, the viewers’
vantage points, and other variables. Its
content was mostly limited to artistic im-
ages, but Ramia and his team recognized
the potential to take it even further.
“That’s when we brought the idea and
our vision to the table with Westbury to
see if it was something we could achieve,”
Ramia shares.
Based in Toronto, Westbury National is
one of Canada’s biggest and best-known
professional AV integration and event pro-
duction companies and was tapped as the
AV design firm for the Halifax Convention
Centre and some associated spaces. In
addition to the various integrated systems
for that facility and its many meeting and
event rooms – background and fore-
ground audio systems, video and signage
systems, distribution and networking, etc.
– that included Rogers Square.
Later into the process, Westbury was
also awarded the integration contract
in partnership with Halifax-based AV
specialists Backman Vidcom. Westbury
oversaw project management and shared
equipment supply with Backman, which
handled the physical installation of
components; however, that didn’t include
Rogers Square, which Westbury managed
solely with physical installation help from
the centre’s staff.
“The original concept here was driven
by Joe and his team, and we supported
them through their discussions with
input on what would be viable and what
wouldn’t,” says David VanVeldhuisen,
Westbury’s director of engineering, revis-
iting the meeting with Argyle executives
upon their return from Germany with a
clearer vision of how the video system
might come together. VanVeldhuisen is
actually based in Halifax, and interfaced
closely with project lead Doug Wildeboer
and their colleagues in Toronto through-
out the process.
ROGERS SQUARE FACING EAST W/ SCREENS COMPRISED OF ABSEN LED XD6 VIDEO PANELS
ROGERS SQUARE FACING WEST W/ SINGLE CLIP MAPPED TO ALL SCREENS
Winter 2019 | 23