Media facades: LED screens for building fronts

A media facade is an LED screen that covers an entire building facade or most of it. The pixel pitch is coarse, P15–P50: a media facade is viewed from 20–30 metres and further — from the road, the square, the next block. By day the building stays a building; in the evening the facade becomes a screen for advertising, brand videos and city broadcasts. KazLedPro designs, supplies and installs media facades in Almaty and across Kazakhstan.

We have worked with LED screens since 2012. More than 1,000 sites across the country, 62 of them published in the portfolio on this site, including facade screens on shopping malls and office buildings. Installation is done by our own crew, we calculate and fabricate the steel and the substructure ourselves, and our module warehouse is in Almaty. The catalogue has three media facade models with datasheet specifications: P15, P31.25 and P50.

Buying a media facade means buying a project, not just a screen: wind load, the bearing capacity of the wall, power supply, approvals from the building owner and the city. We close these questions before installation and price the job by the actual facade dimensions: there is a calculator on the site, and a commercial proposal is ready within a day.

Five types of media facade

The word “media facade” covers five different constructions, and the choice between them decides what can be hung on a given building at all and what it will cost. They have one thing in common: the screen is designed for distant viewing and does not seal the facade shut.

Strip and cabinet types are chosen when a full advertising picture across the building is needed. Smart pixels and diffuser strips suit decorative tasks with a limited budget per square metre. Mesh is for glazed facades where daylight inside must be preserved.

• Strip type: individual LED strips 200 to 2,000 mm long with a pitch of 25 to 64 mm. There is no cabinet, so arched and cylindrical facades are assembled from strips.
• Cabinet strips: a light pencil-case cabinet with power supplies and control inside, LED strips outside, one cable per cabinet. A widespread technology for large areas; an aluminium substructure for glass, aluminium and concrete comes in the kit.
• Smart pixel: a separate puck with a group of LEDs, linked by power and signal wires. Mounted on cables and clips or recessed into a surface — hence three-dimensional art objects and designer shapes.
• Diffuser strips: mounted in profiles between glazing units, far apart from each other. Invisible from inside; after dark the building becomes a light installation from outside.
• Mesh screen: a full screen with a refresh rate up to 3,840 Hz and 30–50% transparency, aluminium cabinets 1000×500 and 500×500 mm, pitch 10 to 15 mm, construction depth from 100 mm.

Catalogue models: P15, P31.25 and P50

The P15 media facade is a 500×500×54 mm cabinet weighing 10 kg, 33×33 pixels per cabinet, 900 nit brightness, IP65, recommended viewing distance from 30 m. This is the option for facades that need readable text, logos and video, not just colour patches.

The P31.25 and P50 media facades are a grid assembled to the facade size, with a standard 1000×1000 mm transport module. Brightness up to 6,000 nit, IP67, operating temperature from −40 to +60 °C, transparency 30–90%: the facade behind the screen stays visible and windows remain windows. Weight about 12 and 8 kg/m², average power 478 and 187 W/m². P31.25 gives 32×32 pixels per square metre, P50 gives 20×20. The rule is simple: the further the viewer stands, the coarser the pitch can be and the lower the cost per square metre.

Designing a media facade: load, power, approvals

A media facade weighs 8 to 12 kg/m² without the substructure, and its wind resistance is considerable. So before ordering equipment we calculate the wind load and check what we are fixing to: a ventilated facade, cast concrete, brick and glazing all need different fixing details. The aluminium substructure is matched to the specific wall, not taken from a standard drawing.

Power: maximum consumption is 1,200 W/m² for P15 and 1,434 W/m² for P31.25, with the average two to three times lower. A facade of several hundred square metres needs its own supply line, protective switchgear and usually three-phase power. Control is a video processor and a controller; content and brightness are changed remotely.

Placing an advertising structure on a facade is approved with the building owner and city services. We prepare the technical part of the package: drawings, load calculations, the power supply diagram, equipment datasheets.

Facade screens in our portfolio

The published part of the portfolio includes facade LED screens with a finer pitch than a classic media facade: a corner outdoor P5 screen of 48 m² on the facade of Atakent Mall in Almaty (2023), an outdoor P10 screen of 960×960 mm cabinets for the Bazis company in Astana (2021), and a 36 m² outdoor P3 screen on the Dubai Municipality Headquarters building in Dubai (2023). It is the same facade work: substructure, work at height, power, approvals.

If the building already has a banner or an old screen, the media facade goes in its place without repairing the facade itself: the substructure covers irregularities, and the transparent P31.25 and P50 models do not interfere with windows or ventilation.

What the supply includes and how we deliver across Kazakhstan

A media facade supply includes strips, cabinets or mesh of the chosen type with power supplies and receiving cards, a video processor and a control computer with a brightness schedule, cabling along the facade, a substructure design with wind-load calculation and its fabrication, installation with work at height, commissioning, training and documents: passport, diagrams, acts and a 2–5 year warranty card.

Equipment ships from our Almaty warehouse or to order from the factory and travels across Kazakhstan by freight company; the substructure is fabricated in Almaty and installed by our travelling crew with a lift or rope-access technicians. Design, placement approval, delivery and installation timing are fixed in the contract — for a media facade they are longer than for a hall screen and depend on the facade being ready.