All posts by Raina Kamrat

University of Cincinnati

by Raina Kamrat Athletics

George & Helen Smith Athletic Museum

Cincinnati, OH

To help the University of Cincinnati engage star students and student-athletes, Xibitz assisted in creating one impressive experience after another at the University’s athletic museum. The project’s goals: Communicate the benefits and notable achievements of the University’s educational excellence and rich athletic heritage, utilizing the building’s central atrium space as a museum, archive, welcome center and recruiting vehicle.

As the contract manager for Perkins&Will | Eva Maddox Branded Environments, Xibitz produced design and build features including large-scale environmental graphics, signage elements, interactive kiosks, archival artifact displays, and interactive projection for multimedia communication, all within a pre-existing budget and very tight schedule. Custom glass display cases and engaging interactive experiences fill the Museum. Additionally, 120-foot diagonal Holopro screens are suspended six floors above the Museum’s atrium and display a visiting athlete’s most recent footage. The Celebration Walk is a custom terrazzo floor with motion sensors that trigger highlight footage on video monitors as visitors walk by. Laser-cut, internally lit 12-foot steel poles are motion-censored to display backlit text and graphics when triggered.

Snap On

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Corporate Headquarters

Kenosha, WI

Set in a 25,000-square-foot factory space reclaimed for training and events, the museum showcases more than 500 artifacts, including a Ford Model T – which, when mass-produced with completely interchangeable parts, set a new standard for efficient and rational manufacturing, and Snap-on adapted them as mobile sales vehicles. Also featured are the company’s “5 does the work of 50” tool kit, with which Snap-on established socket tools as the industry standard for fitting interchangeable auto parts; information about the company’s family of brands sold around the world; a 150-foot timeline display; and custom mobile toolboxes that allow reconfiguration for varied audiences.

University of Tennessee Research Association

by Raina Kamrat Higher Education

Solar Educational Exhibit 

Knoxville, Tennessee

Creating an educational exhibit that will engage multiple audiences requires a team that can leverage its combined strengths imaginatively and effectively. Perkins&Will Branded Environments and Xibitz employed a collaborative design/build approach to develop this new immersive and interactive exhibit. Working with The University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF), in conjunction with its West Tennessee Solar Farm project, the team developed solutions to educate and resonate with diverse audiences, from 4-H groups to solar-value-chain industry leaders to city/county government and more. 

The combined result is SPECTRUM, a unique experience that will teach visitors about the past, present and future of solar power in Tennessee, and which makes complex concepts fun through attention-grabbing graphics, dynamic use of scale and creative interactive technologies. Relying on light as a narration device, the exhibit is designed to engage users upon arrival and spark a sense of discovery in the building’s Welcome Center.The exhibit also has a mobile element to be used at tradeshows, educational venues and public events to promote the UTRF brand and solar power industry.

HERE Technologies

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Corporate Office

Chicago, IL 

Occupying eight floors of the Boeing Building, the 275,000-square-foot HERE Chicago office was transformed into a contemporary environment that reflects the company’s vision, brand, and history of innovation as the worlds’ #1 location platform company. 

Xibitz partnered with Gensler to bring the environmental design to life throughout the newly renovated space. Key elements include feature walls found near the cafes on several floors. The Crosswalk Cafe showcases concrete panels with hooks and tensioned wires connecting in random patterns meant to mimic HERE’s location technology. The Lakefront Café features digitally printed wallcovering with colored acrylic fins. The Terrace Café has formed metal pans with faux moss and applied dimensional text. 

Other brand elements include direct printed Lintec film distraction graphics and various logos on multiple floors. The reception desk displays a custom metal screen with LED lighting and colored film depicting the HERE brand logo.

Nutrilite

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Center for Optimal Health

Buena Park, CA

The Nutrilite Health Institute is a worldwide collaboration of experts who are dedicated to helping people achieve optimal health – through research, education and practical, personalized solutions. To this end, the company’s Center for Optimal Health is a world-class teaching and training facility, comprised of 33,000 square feet spread over two floors, providing the personal, interactive Nutrilite Experience.

To create such a personalized, experiential and comprehensive health assessment and educational opportunity, Xibitz worked with London’s LIVE to help the makers of NUTRILITE achieve their goals. The result: Visitors marvel at a two-story rotating DNA sculpture and browse through educational works of art as they learn strategies for achieving optimal health. They also engage with an informative, customized experience highlighting their own health and wellness; NUTRILITE™ products and the organic farming practices, cutting-edge research, and processing methods that go into their development and manufacture; and the possibilities of marketing and merchandising NUTRILITE™ products.

Eli Lilly

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Corporate Headquarters

Indianapolis, IN

Global pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company had finished its 250,000-square-foot Corporate Center, its gateway to extensive research and administrative campus. But one thing remained: the need for a lobby worthy of Lilly’s legacy and impact on humanity.

An aggressive nine-month schedule for the project demanded a design/build approach and a unique partnership. Designer HOK translated Lilly’s core values into complex, multilayered storylines expressed in three physical components – Life, Science, and Horizons – and relied on Xibitz to transform these abstract concepts into reality while meeting financial, brand development and scheduling goals.

Solutions include a 3,000-pound molecular ring that appears to “float” in the air; a Science Wall reflecting the convergent disciplines that intertwine in pharmaceutical research and development; and a 16-foot-tall mother and child sculpture, flanked by curved reading tables that explain its meaning to the Lilly story.

TD Ameritrade

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Headquarters

Omaha, NE

In opening a new headquarters, TD Ameritrade brought together its corporate, technology, and operations teams, which had been dispersed throughout the Omaha metropolitan area. The result, using an open-plan floor plate, accommodates these business units’ continuously changing needs, offers improved workspaces, and enhances collaboration.

HOK, with Xibitz’s support, achieved the company’s interior branding goals, creating a high-energy, fun and collaborative workplace that employs cues from the financial industry, community, company history, and sustainability achievements. A two-story atrium wall sculpture, a history wall embedded with iPads, a self-updateable community display, a monochromatic award display, and an abacus sculpture celebrate the company’s story and promote interaction.

The facility is Nebraska’s largest LEED® Platinum certified building. 

Newell Rubbermaid

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Design Center

Kalamazoo, MI

With brands as diverse as Sharpie and Levolor, and 2013 net sales of $5.7 billion in more than 100 countries, Newell Rubbermaid continues to set its sights higher. To facilitate the achievement of this goal, its new Design Center gathers the industrial, graphic and usability designers from all of its brands around the world under one roof.

Perkins&Will, engaged Xibitz to confirm its designs for the Center through prototypes and mockups and to carry out fabrication and installation. The project focused on two key elements that elegantly articulate the spirit and energy of the Design Center. First, more than seven miles of ash wood slats run the length of the wall and ceiling of the Center’s main corridor, creating a continuous link between all of the design teams. The second element stands opposite the entry doors. Seemingly random wood blocks form a solid wall that conveys to visitors and reminds designers of the fortifying power of collaboration. Together the two elements deliver a message of cohesion, flexibility and experimentation.

Airbus

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Experience Center

Washington, D.C.

The Airbus Experience Center utilizes state-of-the-art technology and interactive displays, providing elements of discovery along the way to help elevate the conversation to a place where we can discuss the ways in which we are all now connected. As the global industry leader, with a focus on the future, Airbus is using this experience to represent their incredible story and reinforce their past and future impact.

To do so, Airbus enlisted Hornall Anderson and Xibitz to create a state-of-the-art Experience Center located capitol district center in Washington, DC. Hosting a range of visitors from airline customers to congressmen, the center invites guests into a greater understanding of Airbus Group’s role in shaping the future of travel, defense and aerospace. The result is an industry-leading sales and educational tool, and a powerful reminder that the sky connects us all.

Brookfield

by Raina Kamrat Corporate

Brookfield, WI 

Design group, Kahler Slater, engaged Xibitz to produce and install branding elements and a suspended sculpture for the Brookfield Conference Center. Peter Ogden, Senior Environmental Brand Designer for Kahler Slater, stated, ““The working concept for the sculpture references the notion of migration—a nod to the great blue heron rookery in Brookfield—consisting of organic forms of a few varying sizes suspended above.” Xibitz solutioned the hanging mechanism and coordinated with the ceiling contractor, visiting the site prior to production to map the location of each hanging point to ensure the install matched the design intent. Several samples were produced for the design team showing various metal shapes, sizes, finishes, and hardware options to assist Kahler Slater in deciding the right look and feel for the sculpture. Thought and care went into developing the hanging points to make sure each “bird” remained level and hung in just the right way.

The end result consists of shapes in “flight” in a combination of metallic finishes both natural and painted suspended from the ceiling with stainless steel cables. The stunning sculpture hangs in the atrium of the new Community Center as if the herons were in natural flight.

The Community Wall is produced from layered MDF and aluminum with map details etched and infilled on the face of the aluminum. A combination of digital photo frames and direct printed photo panels in various thicknesses and sizes are installed in a collage over the background. Other elements included a dimensional logo, digitally printed acrylic panel describing the work on the sculpture as well as an engraved aluminum plaque consisting of building credits for the project.