“Kassel. The future is colourful. Like a bright ribbon wrapped around gift paper, a gigantic jagged band winds around the Karlskirche.” – HNA, 13 June 2013
The colourfully decorated Karlskirche drew Hessentag visitors inside to the “Church of the Future”. Commissioned by the Protestant Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck, Makom was responsible for planning and executing the design: 450 m² – 300 running metres – of fabric were sewn together and draped around the church as a ribbon. The seven-coloured band ends in a 93 m² canopy and a colourful ramp that makes the church accessible to everyone.
For H&M Austria, Makom developed XXL eye-catchers: giant shopping bags with H&M branding conceal a cinema inside a shipping container, and a smaller carrier bag complements the campaign or stands on its own. Everything from one source – from idea to realisation, including mounting, dismantling and storage until the next use.
Size: 6 × 3 × 6 m · Material: shipping container, steel structure covered with PVC-free textile prints
Spring 2012: pop-up cinema at the MuseumsQuartier Vienna
Sofia Coppola’s commercial for the “Marni at H&M” collaboration was shown inside an oversized carrier bag in Marni style – a giant shopping bag outside, comfortable seats inside.
Summer 2012: beach feeling at the MuseumsQuartier
For the next run we built a beach as well – matching the new swimwear collection. This time the cinema was all in white.
Small but mighty
The smaller XL bag (2 × 1 × 3 m) was used at the first H&M Marni event; more were shipped to Zagreb and set up at a store opening in Zurich.
“Kassel has a lot to celebrate – celebrate with us!” Under this motto, a large-format Megaprint wrapped the scaffolding of the KulturBahnhof’s right wing from March 2013. The 56 m wide, 14 m high poster showed a panorama of Kassel seen from the Hercules and the highlights of the 2013 anniversary year – from Hessentag to the Grimm expedition.
The clever part of the 784 m² surface: the event notices were separate posters, so three motifs could be swapped easily at the end of June – keeping the Megaprint up to date into the autumn.
Samsung Shapes – smart brand staging at the Skyscraper Festival
At the fifth Skyscraper Festival in Frankfurt am Main, main sponsor Samsung Electronics gave visitors extraordinary views of the city. Along the festival route, a trail with five prize stations was created; for each one the Makom team built a shape in a typical Samsung silhouette: smartphone, tablet, laptop, camera and TV.
The Makrolon shapes were anchored in a timber structure and set up at five city-centre locations: Hammering Man, Goetheplatz, the Stock Exchange, the ECB and the Alte Oper. Visitors who had their photo taken at every station received a gift at the Samsung Mobile Store.
World records and superlatives were the result – but before the giant project, wrapping Bayer’s headquarters in Leverkusen into the world’s largest Aspirin® box, was completed on 6 March 1999, countless uncertainties had to be overcome. Admittedly, the mega box gave the Makom project team a few “headaches” before the happy ending. This is the story of a mega event we still look back on with pride.
The brief
Bayer AG was celebrating an anniversary: with a 22,500 m² wrap, the company wanted to create a special monument to the world’s most famous headache remedy on its 100th birthday, 6 March 1999.
The challenge
Within four months a solution had to be developed and produced – for an idea whose scale exceeded anything done before. The requirement not to touch the building fabric in any way made the task even harder, as did the many safety regulations. With 60 cm service shafts protruding all around the building, the fixing system had to compensate for the uneven façade and hold the wrap securely without direct wall contact. It also had to withstand wind and weather at 130 m, transfer horizontal and vertical suction forces and avoid pressure on the windows.
The concept
After intensive analysis, Makom’s chief engineer Raimund Apel and managing director Michael (MiKi) Lazar developed a unique supporting structure: the mega box was held by 48 air-filled tubes mounted on the façade lift rails and inflated by continuous blowers on the roof. A steel ring on the roof anchored tubes and tarpaulins, while straps and specially developed clamps on protruding T-profiles provided stability without a single drill hole. The fine mesh skin reduced wind load, and an air cushion between building and skin buffered the wind forces.
The realisation
A continuous steel ring projecting a good 80 cm beyond the roof edge was installed. The material was lowered down the wall piece by piece in custom-made bags, the strips were tensioned on the T-beams and zipped together flush. Finally, the support tubes were inflated via the blower control on the roof.
Just in time
To finish in time for the 100th birthday, up to 4 site managers, more than 30 climbers, 15 steel workers, 20 security and assembly assistants, 2 project managers and 12 helpers worked on site during the last ten days. Up to 22 people sewed around the clock in shifts, and the finished strips were mounted straight from the truck. The last panel arrived on Saturday morning at 6 a.m. – while the team battled storm warnings of up to force 11.
The record in numbers
22,500 m² of PVC mesh in 32 printed strips
Each strip 675 m², approx. 250 kg, 120 m long
2,000 m² of digitally printed Aspirin® tablets, sewn on and welded
Tablet enlargement factor: 187,000 % – from 2.3 cm to around 43 m
After extensive renovation, the Auestadion is once again Kassel’s sporting gem. With the completion of the main stand, the stadium shines in a new, state-of-the-art look and has become an architectural highlight of the city.
Makom clad the impressive steel roof by Lamparter with a textile mesh structure: 3,300 m² of mesh in total, spread over 140 individual panels plus the two side claddings. With the right lighting, the bright white mesh surfaces can glow in colour or reveal the structure behind.
Because Makom was involved from the architects’ very first ideas, the necessary fixings could be planned into the steelwork from the start. A 1:1 sample panel convinced the client, and all panels were installed on schedule within six weeks.
A conventional construction sign is costly to produce, install and remove. We have the solution – save time and money from now on!
We take care of installation and removal, disposal and any structural calculations required – one call is all it takes.
No concrete work is needed, so the system can be removed without a trace. The signs are made from resource-saving panels or PVC tarpaulin, available in any size – on request even with self-sufficient, off-grid lighting.
Our order handling is fast, straightforward and affordable.
Unusual and highly effective advertising can be achieved with “flying” messages. Balloon fabric can be printed in high quality and offers countless possibilities for advertising ideas that really take off.
Quick, light and easy to set up and use, air-supported advertising media are the ideal eye-catcher for short campaigns where permanent image installations are technically impossible or too costly.
