National Award Proves It: Life Begins At Forty
The accolades started at the top and got better. Just shy of its Fortieth birthday, the Britannia Mine Museum underwent a 14.7-Million-Dollar metamorphosis, with its key environments built by 3DS. Now, the vast new complex has been given the highest honour by the Canadian Museums Association, with the Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Facility Development and Design category. It was a unanimous decision on the part of the awards committee, who went even further, to state that “the project was nationally significant and exceeded the current standard of practice”.
3DS has partnered with Designers, D. Jensen & Associates, on a number of projects. That firm has been well-known for decades in Vancouver’s exhibit industry and this has certainly been the highlight of our association with them. Working with Jensen requires an ability to meet exacting standards and to deliver components crafted in concert with a project’s many other players. We created exhibits for the administration building, as well as the design & fabrication of exhibits in the Beaty-Lundin Visitor Centre, the complex’s main facility. “If It’s Not Grown, It Must Be Mined” is the museum’s core message and it resonates throughout the immense new visitors’ complex. The museum has now become a vibrant, internationally recognized destination. “We’re looking to change people’s attitudes” says Project Director, Phil Aldrich.
3DS Builds Vancouver Canucks “Hall Of Heroes”. Heroes Approve.
It was a gala event for Vancouver’s hometown hockey team and 3DS built their three greatest players a monument the city will never forget. A stadium capacity crowd of fully-charged Hockey fans cheered the opening of the Vancouver Canucks Hall Of Heroes, December 11th. and its enshrinement of star players Trevor Linden, Stan Smyl and ex-team Captain, Markus Naslund, whose No. 19 jersey ceremoniously joined those of Linden and Smyl that morning in official retirement.
“It’s a really cool display”, Linden told the press. “To see the unique memorabilia that’s displayed here and some of the interactive items, really captures Stan and myself and obviously Markus”. An immense, seven-foot high-definition screen is the exhibit’s centrepiece. This main display is flanked by a series of smaller, fully interactive touchscreen displays, which allow visitors to explore the entire career of each player. Pucks from famous goals, helmets, trophies, equipment – it’s all there, with photos, artifacts and memorabilia dating right back to childhood. Even the X-Ray of Naslund’s broken leg is included.
The overall exhibit was created by Montréal’s Moment Factory, a lighting effects specialty house with clients as diverse as Microsoft, the Pan-Pacific “Sails Of Light” show and Nine Inch Nails. Design of the space itself went to Karo, one of Vancouver’s oldest & largest design firms, who brought the build to 3DS. Together, we were able to showcase numerous actual artifacts in a fully interactive exhibit environment. This included Trevor Linden’s entire locker & changing area – not a re-creation, but the genuine articles, all set up exactly as they were, for visitors to sit in and explore. The very floor itself is an impeccable recreation of an NHL ice rink. In true 3DS style, it’s absolutely indistinguishable, blade marks and all, from the real thing. A second phase of the exhibit is planned, but we can’t talk about that until the official announcement. Stay tuned.
Telephony, Photography & Community, All Together In One Intensely Stylish Retail Package
It’s a visionary move that combines both the strengths and markets of two seemingly unrelated industries. But, as the worlds of telephone communications and photography converge, Telus and Black’s Photography have joined forces to move that convergence to its next stage. The store is “CAYA” – “Come As You Are” – and the concept revolves around an array of products that flow naturally from a meeting of the two fields – products for creating, displaying and sharing personal photos and digital communications. Each company brings its individual expertise to the game and 3DS built the store.
To launch such a venture, CAYA targeted its inaugural location at Vancouver’s vibrant, diverse alternative community. These are the “bleeding-edge” early adopters, the socially & digitally connected, who Get It because they already live it. And these prime digital consumers bring another layer to the concept: being concentrated somewhat outside the mainstream and inside Vancouver’s West End, there is a definite “local community” aspect to this market’s interactions, a point CAYA didn’t miss. The designers, our brilliant friends at Waddell and Conder, made sure the entire store was readily convertible, with rolling display cabinets enabling it to turn instantly into a community event space.
Of course the decor had to match the rest of the customers’ stylish lives. In this slick, savvy space, ceilings soar to twenty feet, over all-designer store fixtures, glowing under rich, dramatic lighting. Spectacular display graphics bring context to everything, for a perfectly contained world. We completed this formidable package in only 4 weeks, start to finish, and went straight into a second location in Vancouver’s Gastown. Telus plans to make CAYA a nationwide chain.
Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II Unveils 3DS-Built Time Capsule In Historic Winnipeg Airport Ceremony
ORDINARILY, WE DON’T GO IN FOR CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS but, sometimes, you just have to make an exception. Demanding a level of quality and craft befitting no less than a Royal visit, this is exactly the kind of challenging, complex project 3DS has spent years becoming famous for – an unusual, one-off creation that not only had to be both dazzlingly beautiful and thoroughly official, but will also have to look brand new after fifty years in a sealed compartment. 3DS was simply the only company that could make this.
On July 3rd, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and husband, the Duke Of Edinburgh, became the first passengers to arrive at the Winnipeg Airport’s new terminal, scheduled to open in the Fall of 2010. Accompanied by Canada’s Lieutenant Governor, Philip Lee, Her Majesty dedicated the terminal and signed a letter to the future youth of Manitoba. Along with a hand-blown glass rose, which the Queen had brought with her, the letter was deposited into a sealed, gold-plated tube, which was inserted into an intricately designed time capsule, to be reopened in 2060.
Everything had to be realized with Swiss-watch precision and rock solid durability and 3DS delivered on all accounts. Designed by Stantec Engineering, this proved to be an incredibly complex fabrication challenge. The Time Capsule itself, a 2 foot cylinder of solid glass, encloses the exquisitely delicate hand-blown Queen’s Rose securely within an impenetrable stainless steel housing bearing a dramatic, laser-etched Royal Crest. This is in turn built into a cutaway in one of the terminal’s columns, with the entire assemblage measuring 5 feet high. The Time Capsule fabrication was a formidable challenge, but you could say we rose to the occasion. Pun intended, of course.
“To Call These Places Cafeterias Simply Doesn’t Do Them Justice”
WHAT FABRICATION COMPANY wouldn’t want to see a project of theirs in Skiing Mag.com’s “Ten Best Ski-Resort Cafeterias”? Exactly. So, imagine how great it was for 3DS to learn that our projects had landed not one, but two spots in that Top Ten. The magazine’s emissaries ate at ski areas all over North America and selected the 10 best on-mountain restaurants in the ski industry. Two were 3DS projects.
First up is Colorado’s Moffat Market, in the Number Four slot. It’s named after the famous Moffat Tunnel, which has its West end right at the Winter Park Ski Resort. We have a soft spot for Moffat Market. It’s one of our earlier ski resort food courts and was one of our more conceptually ambitious undertakings, offering nothing short of a culinary railroad tour of the continental USA, all in the space of a single lunch stop. We had fun with it, as well as with the “Derailer Bar”, at the building’s other end, and Skiing Mag.com described themselves as “blown away”. Of course they’re talking mainly about the food, but we like to think the surroundings had something to do with the experience.
Next is The Canyons’ Red Pine Lodge, in Park City, Utah, at Number Seven. This is the one that was straining at the seams in a too-small, too-busy space and needed serious reorganizing. Our servery facelift brought things nicely into line and the facility now comfortably accommodates hundreds of hungry skiers, every day.
We feel privileged to keep company like this and it’s really brought home when Skiing Mag.com writes, “to call these places cafeterias simply doesn’t do them justice”. Naturally, our collective hat’s off to the Snow Park Restaurant in Deer Valley for taking the Number One position. And we’ve made a note to call them.
3DS-Made Monument On Permanent Display At Whistler, In Vancouver And At United Nations
A PERMANENT United Nations monument was unveiled by Canadian Governor-General, Michaelle Jean, and 3DS is proud to have been its fabricator. The “Olympic Truce Wall”, a symbol of peace and fair play at all Olympic Games, was created by acclaimed First Nations Artist, Corrinne Hunt, who also designed the official Olympic medals.
3DS made and installed the entire monument. Hunt’s dramatic, highly contemporary designs for the wall are derived from her Olympic medal designs, which were previously unavailable to collectors. The graphics themselves are laser-etched onto precisely interlocking stainless steel panels which are in turn layered onto towering concrete slabs. Three monuments in total were made: two identical pieces will reside permanently at the Olympic Athletes’ Village in Vancouver and at Whistler Village. The third, a smaller alternative version, will remain on permanent display at the UN Building in New York. It was unveiled by the Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon in October, 2010.
Photo by Jenelle Schneider / PNG
State Of The Art Tech Lets This Award-Winning Video Wall Respond To Your Movements
3DS HAS BUILT one of the world’s largest interactive video walls. A key feature of Robson Square’s 2010 Commerce Centre, this 100-foot long Interactive digital corridor in the centre’s BC Showcase welcomes visitors from across the globe during Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
3DS was uniquely suited to build and install this interactive exhibit. The installation was designed by Switch Interactive and the project was a team effort of Lower Mainland companies. Switch Creative Director, Catherine Winckler says this is “It’s rare to be given the opportunity to work on an interactive installation of this scope and size”.
The BC Showcase covers 2,500 square feet of space and features BC wood, from floor to ceiling. The Interactive digital wall presents 17 animated stories, with motion effects that respond to viewers’ actions, which are continuously tracked by 45 overhead infrared sensors. Small Business Minister, Iain Black explains the project’s purpose in a nutshell: “It’s designed to show off our province to the world. This is going to make a huge impression on our Olympic guests – it’s one of the world’s largest interactive walls”.
Photo by Ian Smith / PNG
A Classic Steinway And Classic First Nations Art: 3DS Know-How Is The Link
3DS IS PART OF another historic first. A white Steinway Concert Grand Piano, the first ever to be transformed with Coast Salish artwork, is on exhibit during Vancouver’s hosting of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Created by First Nations Artist, Jody Broomfield, the striking design involves Native imagery from deep in the Coast Salish tradition: the piano is painted with crests of thunderbird, salmon, ocean and human ancestors. Working largely behind the scenes, as a key part of the Artist’s process, 3DS was instrumental in creating the masterwork.
“We helped the Artist actualize it – to actually get his design onto the piano”, says Ross Ireland of 3DS. Far from being simply a matter of painting by hand on a flat surface, this was very much a precision job. “It was no small task. The level of craft had to be flawless, all the way through, since we only had one chance to get it right. Our paint masks were precision-cut by computer and had to meticulously follow Jody’s designs”.
The result is a genuine work of Art that is completely unique. The $500,000 piano was unveiled at the Chief Joe Mathias Recreation Centre, on the Squamish Nation Reserve in North Vancouver, BC. It will be sold after the 2010 Olympics, with partial proceeds going to the BC Lions Society For Children With Disabilities. Broomfield, who also created the Four Host First Nations Crest for the 2010 Olympics and has designed coins for the Royal Canadian Mint, said of the finished piano, “It has its own life and spirit, now”.
Photo by Ian Lindsay / PNG
3DS has moved. For years, our work has been steadily growing bigger and more exciting, while our original premises barely grew at all. We’ve been producing world-class exhibitry and interiors, all while straining at the seams in our old place. Now, we’ve made the jump to the next level.
And it’s a great level: now in our own standalone building, we’ve effectively tripled the size of our operation, going from 7,000 to 18,000 sq. ft. We now have two full floors of offices, with Design & CAD on one and corporate on the other. We’re setting up, settling in and operating at full speed, all at the same time, and the biggest adjustment for everyone is getting used to a comfortable amount of elbow room.
But it’s our new shop that’s the real quantum leap. As big as a hockey rink, this facility was made to order for 3DS. Having everything on one level gives our production flow a major boost. We can accommodate fabrication of virtually any size in working comfort and efficiency. And when the job is done, we can drive a semi-truck right into the building, to load & ship.
We have clients all over the world but, if any of you want to stop by, we’ll proudly give you the tour.
This all-new website reflects our completely revamped identity – new URL, new logo and up-to-date content. Stay tuned for more updates.