Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) is not only prized for showcasing the best in live entertainment from Australia and around the world, its highly visible South Bank riverside location at the Cultural Centre means QPAC is often approached to light up its external walls in a specific colour to support various charities and events.
The ability to be able to efficiently illuminate significant areas of the building prompted the combined efforts of QPAC and the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland to enable a sustained program of lighting the Centre’s external walls with color.
Local Queensland Company, ULA was awarded the contract for the exterior illumination of QPAC, supplying 17 Anolis fixtures comprising Anolis ArcPad Extremes, Anolis ArcPad 94 and 96 Integrals in varying beam angels.
QPAC’s Manager Lighting, Doug Brimblecombe said that the one of the main objectives of the contract was to evenly illuminate as much of the building as possible.
“After on-site testing, we felt that this type of large LED fitting was certainly the best choice and the team at QPAC were very impressed with the color reproduction and output of the Anolis fixtures,” he said.
The focus of illumination was on QPAC’s riverside and parkland end walls as well as the surfaces in between the two main fly towers. All beam angles for the fixtures were plotted before hand in 3D Photometric software by the Anolis in-house design team.
The lighting system is controlled by an E:cue Lighting Application Suite touch screen computer. This can be programmed to perform color changes of the building based on the time of the year, sun up and sun down, plus setting colors for special events, such as all green to promote the color theme of the current show playing at QPAC “Wicked”. ULA also supplied numerous LED lighting fixtures to illuminate and color wash the walls of the courtyard, which are also currently set to green.
“The brief for the lighting of the external walls of QPAC was based on highlighting the structure sympathetically and not overpowering the intrinsic nature of the building’s design by architect Robin Gibson,” explains Brimblecombe.
“Washing the walls from a suitable distance produced a more even spread of light without the usual point source ‘scalloping’ that results from grazing with light at a near distance. ULA provided a design that ticked all the boxes of the brief. The lumen output of the Anolis fixtures is outstanding. The install of a system of lighting over such a large area of QPAC’s roof needed to be simple and neat. Using a wireless data system all conduit runs were kept to short local runs. Control had to be easy to use and able to be expanded if required. The E:cue control is perfect and adding fixtures and programming lighting states is very easy. Overall the whole process with ULA from design, install and commissioning went very well,” he said.
ULA’s Managing Director Cuono Biviano said that the company is proud to be the exclusive supplier of Anolis to illuminate the exterior of the QPAC, in what is their second installation of the product to this venue.
As part of the QPAC’s refurbishment in 2009, over 50 Anolis Arcline36 Optic RGB strips were installed in QPAC’s Concert Hall for wall washing, as well as underneath the foyer bars of its Lyric Theatre and Concert Hall giving seamless illumination. Anolis ArcSource 7 Warm White fixtures were installed over the tops of the bar for an even rich and warm glowing effect.
In total, 14 Anolis Drivers were used, comprising Anolis ArcPower 360 DMX, Anolis ArcPower 144 and Anolis ArcPower 36, to control the fixtures in the Concert Hall. Utilizing high powered Luxeon Emitters, the Anolis Arcline 36 Optic RGB strip is designed and made with the highest quality of interchangeable optical systems ensuring that the desired effect can be achieved in the widest range of architectural application possibilities.
“The choice of LED fixtures provides an overall reduction in power consumption, so for many projects today is an instant ‘first choice’ – add to that the excellent performance and effect that can be quite easily achieved with the Anolis LED solution, and it is not difficult to demonstrate the value proposition – particularly in large venues like QPAC,” adds Biviano.
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