Vancouver, BC · Case study
Aritzia at CF Pacific Centre: 7,780 sq ft of exterior window graphics, 212 panels
Aritzia wanted the street-facing windows of its future CF Pacific Centre flagship, at the corner of Robson and Howe in downtown Vancouver, covered in campaign imagery: two full elevations of glazing, on Howe Street and Robson Street, eight rows high, printed on exterior first-surface film and installed from a lift. Here's how we measured windows nobody could reach, turned the artwork into 212 panels that went up in order, and installed them on a busy downtown corner in winter.
- sq ft
- 7,780
- sq ft
- panels
- 212
- panels
- elevations
- 2
- elevations
- rows
- 8
- rows
The challenge
- Scale: about 7,780 sq ft across two elevations, eight rows of glazing, plus mullions and doors.
- Reach: most of the upper windows were too high to measure from the ground and had no access from inside.
- Image quality: the campaign background images weren't built for building-scale output.
- Legibility: the opening message crosses the window frames, and the client asked that it stay readable across the mullions.
- Timing: approval came just before the holidays, with production and install running into January.
- Scope growth: the client added coverage beyond the original scope partway through.
How we measured what we couldn't reach
We field-measured every ground-floor window and used the building's base elevation drawings for the upper floors that couldn't be reached. To absorb the difference between drawings and real glass, every window panel carries 1 inch of bleed on its bottom and right edges, and every mullion and door panel carries 1 inch of bleed all around.
212 panels, 212 files
Our design team split the artwork into 212 individual print files and built a 1:40 install map. Every panel has a unique tag: the elevation (W for the West elevation on Howe Street, S for the South elevation on Robson Street), the row (01 to 08) and its position in the row (A to S), so a panel tagged S-03-F goes in exactly one place. The south elevation was split into two sections, one for each background image. The campaign backgrounds were upscaled so they print cleanly at 100 DPI at building scale, and the layout kept the opening message legible where it crosses the mullions.
Production
- A large printed proof for colour sign-off before full production
- Panels prepped and boxed row by row, left to right, in install order, so the crew could work straight across each row
- Production ran in phases: the first rows and doors were ready before the holiday break, and the rest followed as additional film arrived in early January
Install
- Lift access on a busy downtown corner: we worked with centre management and the parkade operator to close the Robson parkade ramp on a Saturday night so the lift could reach the upper rows
- Two crews in parallel: one on the upper levels and one on the ground row, while our own team handled mullions and final fixes
- Exterior first-surface film, applied to the outside of the glass
Timeline
- December 18 to 22Site measurements and elevation drawings
- December 23Proof approved
- December 24All 212 print files complete
- December 29 to 31First production run
- January 5 to 6Remaining film arrives; production continues
- Mid-JanuaryInstalled, including a Saturday-night lift session with the parkade ramp closed
What's on the glass
Aritzia's campaign imagery runs across both elevations as one continuous image, with the brand and opening message readable from across the street. It turns a construction site on one of Vancouver's busiest shopping corners into a billboard for the store that's coming.