Piccadilly Circus digital screens
A planning film and verified views for Piccadilly's next illuminated chapter.
Verified views & planning visuals
Client: Criterion Capital Ltd
Planning consultant: Centro
Planning Stage: Planning permission granted, on appeal
| Planning film
| AVR / Verified views
| Night-time visuals
Lighting the next chapter
A planning film tracing Piccadilly's illuminated past — and showing how the new screens pick up the story.
Historic footage, motion graphics and CGI — a planning film made to support early consultation.
Historic footage, motion graphics and CGI — a planning film made to support early consultation.
The London Pavilion has carried illuminated advertising since the 1880s. Our film sets the proposals in that lineage, combining historic footage, motion graphics, voiceover and on-location shots of Piccadilly Circus with CGI sequences of the new screens in action.
Made to support early consultation and stakeholder engagement, the film shows how the scheme would operate day to day — commercial media alongside public information and cultural programming — in the place that's been doing it longest.
Verified views,
day & night
Verified photomontages and night-time visualisations for the formal planning submission — the evidence package behind the appeal.
We produced AVR3s — Accurate Visual Representations Level 3, the fully-rendered, photorealistic standard — from agreed viewpoints across Piccadilly Circus and the surrounding conservation area. The set covered heritage impact, townscape integration and public realm visibility, with night-time visualisations showing the screens at their most active.
Drag the slider to compare existing and proposed. Gallery below.
A screen that remembers
Planning permission was granted on appeal in late 2024.
Alongside commercial media and dedicated public-service content, the screens will display a photorealistic likeness of the Pavilion's original façade — complete with historic adverts — for ten seconds every half-hour. A building remembering itself, in the medium that replaced it.
Further reading
Criterion Capital announcement
Centro — planning agent
Planning Inspectorate — appeal decision
"This project celebrates the London Pavilion's legacy while creating something truly extraordinary for the future."
Omar Aziz, Criterion
Learn more about our planning visuals with more projects and examples…