An Eye on the Sports World

The new headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne: On three huge OLED displays embedded in the curved walls, visitors and staff alike can discover changing, tailor-made contents. Deriving from the huge database of the Olympic Multimedia Library, historical images and data are displayed in real time.

The integration of the screens into the architecture is spectacular: The Agora is designed along the central staircase, modelled after the Olympic rings, and is composed of curved walls. The historical highlights of the Olympic history are complemented by animations that abstractly transfer the dynamics of various sports into the agora of the Olympic building.

The software, which has been specially tailored to the needs of the IOC, offers great flexibility with regard to the shown content. On the one hand this is an API that controls the interaction between the database and the various required software. On the other hand, a specially developed play-out system makes it possible to flexibly retrieve and display a range of contents.

A total of 36 screens were installed for three video walls: 14 screens form the convex display near the reception and the concave display on the opposite side of the atrium. The flat display, located near the south façade, consists of eight screens. In order embed the curved screens, iart developed a special substructure accurate to the millimetre.

To bring the complex multimedia concept of studio banana to life, iart has developed and implemented special applications for both software and hardware.