exiderdome Is A Marvel Of Modern Design

ATLANTA  — exiderdome, designed to bring the latest manufacturing automation innovations to Siemens customers around the world, is also a feat of engineering.  From its shipping container construction to its 4-ton audio/visual system, exiderdome is a thoroughly modern marvel.  

“Many of our customers are engineers, or work in businesses that require at least some technical knowledge,” said Matias Ernst, Siemens global project manager for exiderdome. “The interesting thing will be to see their reactions. exderdome has an incredibly high ‘wow’ factor.”   

It required a structure that was up to the task.  It not only had to be easy to transport, it needed to be able to stand up to the punishment that it would receive over its four-year world tour.  The building’s designer, OSK of Cologne, Germany, was also instructed that it needed to be capable of state-of-the-art audio visual presentations, offer plenty of space for displaying thousands of products and include venues for large meetings. 

“exiderdome tells a once in a lifetime story,” Ernst said.  “It had to be a mobile platform that combines technical product showcases with customer learning events on timely manufacturing and business topics.”  

Siemens and the designers settled on the durable, modular and precision found in international standard shipping containers.  The identical containers are air tight and water tight.

“Containers are standard mobility.  They are easy to budget and transport, as well as easy to handle,” said Ernst. “We used new, high quality containers because this is a customer showcase and we wanted to ensure it would be just as attractive on the last day of the tour, in 2009, as it was on the first day.”

The result is both intelligent and functional. Exiderdome consists of 55 containers, arranged in a two-story building that is about 50 yards long and has 10,000 square feet of space, including eight product venues, conference rooms, an executive lounge and a central atrium that can be used for receptions, training sessions, multi-media presentations and thought leadership events. 

Once assembled, exiderdome is entirely self-contained, including air conditioning, heat, wireless internet, power generators and a kitchen with hot and cold running water.   A 17-member crew keeps exiderdome running. 

Audio/Visual

The most delicate and complicated part of exiderdome is the spectacular multimedia screen that is located in the atrium.  Three interior walls, approximately 100 linear feet, are made of three-sided columns, or prisms, that rotate to display the wall surface appropriate to event.  In just three seconds, the walls can become a 1,500 square foot movie screen for the dome’s signature HD presentation. 

These three walls are made up of 150 prisms, each about eight inches wide and separated from the next prism by a one millimeter gap.  For the prism system to work properly, the floor must be perfectly level.  The building’s foundation has hundreds of adjustment points that can be raised or lowered to overcome unevenness in the ground beneath exiderdome. 

“We wanted to provide our customers with the best technology show available,” Ernst said. “The prism wall system was the only way we could achieve the high-definition presentation that we wanted.”

The show is powered by seven HD projectors that can deliver project 625 megabytes – as much data as 25,000 written pages – per second.  The audio visual set up, weighs about 4 tons, and there are three people dedicated to running and maintaining it. 

Logistics

The dome will be assembled on an ocean-going barge before it makes its U.S. debut in Chicago, and then sail to its next three U.S. stops plus three Canadian cities along the St. Lawrence seaway.  To reach its final five U.S. destinations, exiderdome will be transferred to a convoy of 55 tractor trailers. 

“Transporting by water has tremendous advantages,” Ernst said.  “It significantly reduces the amount of time we spend putting the exiderdome up and taking it down and leaves us more time for sharing it with our customers.”

During the barge leg, when the structure is left standing, assembly takes only three days and disassembly takes another three days.  Significantly, the rotating prisms and other components necessary for the multimedia presentation must be packed for travel.  During the land portions of the tour, assembly requires 12 days and disassembly requires eight days. 

For more information about exiderdome, visit: www.exiderdome.com/us.