The museum celebrated the completion of its new building in December 2006, and High Output was there for the celebration - having been one of the company's responsible for the installation of key elements inside the structure. The new building, designed by the architectural firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro, was one of that firm's first structures to be built, and the very first they had built in the United States. The ICA is also the first new art museum to be built in Boston for over a century.

The buildings' design echoes that of the nearby waterfront gantry cranes, and has been celebrated by many critics for its openness, which is represented by its exterior grand staircase.

The Challenge

Attempting to install traditional theatrical systems in a newly finished museum ceiling was hindered by the number of other companies that had extensive numbers of equipment, all to be placed in a very confined space, and compounded by the high potential of interference between the various systems. For example:

• structural steel
• HVAC
• electrical
• A/V
• theatrical lighting
• motorized rigging

Our Solution

High Output went above and beyond in their coordination efforts to assist the design and installation team in locating key trade sub-contractors who would be working in the highly compressed ceiling space in order to allow all the equipment and surface areas to work as they were intended to.

We were concerned that without complete and detailed coordination the other trades would compromise our ability to install the theatrical system as designed to the project. With that objective in mind, High Output produced highly detailed drawings with tolerances to less than 1/8-inch coordinating not just our scope, but the mounting level of numerous other trade organizations structural steel, HVAC, electrical, drywall, A/V and millwork.

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The Outcome