Case Study // 2026
ONE LOVE: Celebrating Pride Above New York City
The Brief & Challenge.
To celebrate Pride Month, One World Observatory sought an installation that would honor inclusivity, diversity, and love while complementing one of the most iconic views in the world. Working directly with the marketing team for the entire One World Trade Center complex, Pop Up Your Brand was tasked with designing and fabricating a large-scale experiential photo moment that would engage visitors throughout Pride Month and create a memorable visual centerpiece high above the New York City skyline.
The brief carried real constraints. The piece had to live inside an active observation deck without obstructing the skyline view that defines the venue. It had to hold up to thirty days of public interaction — every guest stopping, touching, and photographing the work. And it had to read as a Pride statement from across the floor while still feeling architectural enough to belong in One World Trade Center.
The Pop Solution.
We designed “One Love” — a custom laser-cut acrylic cityscape sculpture inspired by the New York skyline and anchored by a vibrant rainbow interpretation of One World Trade Center itself. The cityscape silhouette was rendered in clear acrylic so the real skyline behind it remained the hero; the OWT tower at the center of the piece carried the Pride spectrum across its full height, instantly cueing the installation’s purpose without any added signage.
Every layer was CNC-cut in our fabrication shop, edge-polished, and assembled around an internal armature engineered for the floor loading and public-interaction requirements of the Observatory. Integrated LED lighting brought the rainbow tower to life after sunset, when the deck’s view turns to skyline silhouettes and the sculpture becomes the room’s primary light source.
We coordinated install during off-hours to protect daily ticketed operations, met the venue’s strict materials and load-in requirements, and built the piece in modular sections so it could be carried through the elevator bank and reassembled on the deck without disrupting guest flow.
Core Fabrications
THE OUTCOME.
“One Love” anchored the One World Observatory Pride program for the full month, becoming one of the most photographed moments on the deck and generating significant organic social content from visitors and the venue’s own channels. The piece held its finish across thirty days of continuous public interaction with no on-site touch-ups required, and the modular build allowed clean strike at month-end without damage to the venue.
The installation reinforced One World Observatory’s positioning as a cultural destination rather than just an observation deck, and gave the One World Trade Center marketing team a turnkey Pride centerpiece that can be referenced as a template for future seasonal activations.