The Stream - Uber’s Mission Bay, San Francisco HQ Lobby

The Stream inspires Uber employees and visitors with a massive interactive ‘light in motion’ experience.

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INTRODUCTION

When motion is a critical part of your mission and brand values, there’s no better way to communicate that mission than with a dramatic experience with motion at its heart.

The Stream, a dynamic interactive experience designed to focus employees and visitors on Uber’s core mission ‘to ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion,’ achieves that on an architectural scale. Located in Uber’s global headquarters in Mission Bay, San Francisco, The Stream translates Uber’s activities into beams of light in motion, flowing from high up within the building, assembling into new forms, and communicating motivating stories of impact.

Electrosonic provided audiovisual design, integration and a managed services package in support of the experience design agency, HUSH. Together, we created a dynamic solution that conveys Uber’s core values in a unique way to inspire employees, visitors and partners.

OVERVIEW

The Stream is a massive architectural spectacle that combines bespoke lighting and sound design as well as interactive content through a dynamic experience. Consisting of more than 2200 LED strips engineered and integrated into acrylic tubes, the installation flows seamlessly through the lobby atrium descending from the upper floors, across the ceiling to a central point of focus – a large LED wall.

While HUSH focused on the overall design of the space, Electrosonic led the complex integration of audio, video and control systems for the project. Despite the scale and complexity of The Stream, Electrosonic’s solution ensures that the LED strips are easy to service and maintain.

The Stream delivers functional, multimodal content, conveying stories of motion that range from the artistic, to the typographic, to the documentary, all customizable and powered by local mobility information and global platform data. Units of digital light emerge from the upper floors and appear to carry stories of innovation downwards. As the light descends through the LED strips of The Stream, it merges with other lighting effects, growing in density, speed and resolution to communicate high-resolution stories of impact.

Guests interact with these stories via 6 Intel RealSense cameras. These cameras track visitors along their journey through the lobby and intensify the audio from 11 hidden speakers and 4 subwoofers and pulsing light from the LEDs as they walk towards the large 1.2mm pixel pitch LED wall. Here, tailored content helps Uber express its brand story.

CHALLENGE

The LED strips had to be easy to maintain and support through the lifetime of the equipment. The solution also had to ensure that power from a central source reached all equipment. Due to limitations on the number of LEDs a single power source can supply, a new equipment room and distribution system had to be developed to ensure the power supplies reached all of the LED strips. The RealSense tracking cameras can have latency issues over long distances because they are USB-based, so a fiberoptic system was needed to optimize the timing and interactivity of the experience.

SOLUTION

Working with experience design agency HUSH, Electrosonic provided technical design for the system in which the LED strips operate, as well as intricate LED installation, integration and support services for The Stream. To ensure availability, a dedicated Electrosonic Technician provides a 48-hour response service to resolve any issues in The Stream.

Electrosonic’s extensive experience with this type of LED product and specialty large-scale applications allowed us to provide the essential skills and expertise necessary for such a complex project.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Stream brings Uber’s vision for the lobby to life, using lighting, sound and interactive content to convey Uber’s core brand story. The Stream uses a range of visual and audio design elements to bridge the gap between employees’ day-to-day work and Uber’s greater purpose of igniting opportunity by setting the world in motion.

Following the launch in the Mission Bay headquarters, Uber is rolling out scaled versions of The Stream to global workplaces to create consistency in brand experience and messaging.

Project Details

Client

Uber

Partner

HUSH

Location

Mission Bay, San Francisco, California

Size

2,500 sq.ft lobby

Services

Technology Design Consulting

Build & System Integration

AFFINITY by Electrosonic

Project Strategy & Estimation

Equipment Specification

CAD & BIM Modeling

Engineering & Fabrication

Facility Impact Reports

The Stream is a manifestation of how innovative technologies powering light and motion can focus everyone who enters through the doors at Mission Bay on the impact of Uber’s effort and align them with the company’s organizational mission.

David Schwarz

Partner, HUSH

Storytelling Technology The Stream helps Uber share its core vision and communicate its most important relationships with customers and employees.

Seamless Integration Content flows seamlessly as beams of light through more than 2000 LED strips engineered into acrylic tubes, creating a dynamic experience that communicates innovation through motion.