Pharos Architectural Controls

The Pharos LPC X was performing at last week’s MTV Awards in Belfast. Legendary rock band Queen were honoured with the Global Icon Award and presented a medley of songs at the ceremony.
The scenic backdrop on stage was created with a wall of 70 Jarag fixtures connected via Art-Net and a DMX merge, utilising multiple methods of control: the wall was run directly by a Roadhog Full Boar, allowing dimmer effects over the 1750 dimmer channels and access to the inbuilt Jarag sequencer; a Pharos LPC X contributed to the wall control by laying graphics and text over the fixture matrix, synchronised to Adam Lambert’s sung lyrics. Timelines with individual static words, scrolling text and concentric & linear graphics were triggered using custom-built Roadhog personalities. The system was provided by PRG, choreographed and controlled by Theo Cox.

A gloomy Victorian passageway in London has been transformed by Halo Lighting. The Clink Street tunnel is used by both residents and tourists as it is next to the Clink Prison Museum on the site of the notorious medieval gaol.

Clink Street © Halo Lighting

The mesh screen in the roof of the tunnel comprises 9,600 RGB nodes and can display unlimited effects and video. The main programme is gentle twinkling lights which, when triggered by increased pedestrian activity, builds into a dramatic firework display. This is all controlled by a Pharos LPC 60.

Southwark Council commissioned Halo lighting designer Yann Guenancia to develop the concept, realised in collaboration with Architainment Lighting who supplied the Philips Color Kinetics iColor® Flex MX fixtures.

Last month, we featured a behind-the-scenes look at the massive control system required for a shopping mall in Russia. Now we can show you what those eight Pharos LPC Xs are controlling.

The Ginza-inspired shopping area is just one part of the colossal Vegas Mall, a themed shopping complex in Moscow. This street was envisioned to evoke an evening in Tokyo’s exclusive retail district – lighting is an integral part of the experience.

Photo © Philips by Maslov PR

Photo © Philips by Oguz Gulsoy

Design house Elemegi Architetural and mall owners Crocus Group developed the concept with Philips Lighting, drawing on expertise from Philips teams in Turkey, Russia and their headquarters in the Netherlands to produce one of the largest permanent indoor lighting structures ever built.

Thirty-two luxury shops and restaurants have individual façades, each created using different materials and styles and all with LEDs embedded in the surfaces. The lighting design aims to emphasize distinctions in each façade while maintaining a sense of a cohesive theme.

Photo © Philips by Oguz Gulsoy

Decorative and accent lighting on the façades combine with sixty-four panels acting as low resolution screens along the 130m length of the street, each able to display individual sequences or all combining to act as one complete, synchronised lighting canvas.

Bas Hoksbergen, Controls Systems Consultant with Philips, was instrumental in specifying the Pharos control system as the solution to satisfy the requirements for this immense project, “It was very important we fulfilled Philips’ promise of ‘sense and simplicity’. Ginza Street is an advanced installation based around 8 Pharos LPC X controllers, and we were aware that end users would have limited technical knowledge. We had to give them a solution that could also provide complex video and effect updating as easily as possible. Pharos developed the great Dynamic Media Manager software which will enable the customer to do exactly what they want. It’s a perfect example of a meaningful solution, powered by new technology.”

Photo © Philips by Maslov PR

Bas also appreciates the rewards of the control partnership Pharos offers Philips Lighting, “Our partners are our collaborators, not just a supplier or customer. Partners can fill up niches we can’t and we benefit from that. Working with partners in innovation can really lead to amazing results in a short time frame. We were able to create an ambitious, large-scale installation without any major problems or hiccups.”  He was thrilled to see the results of this, when shoppers were not only clearly enjoying the lighting, but were stopping to take photos and videos!

Just how does a lighting design amass the need for over 650 universes of DMX control?  Here are the numbers to show how it all adds up:

• LPC 70 controlling 10800 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 100 controlling 15281 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 100 controlling 14667 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 70 controlling 11824 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 100 controlling 16362 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 100 controlling 13422 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 100 controlling 16505 CK iColor Flex MX nodes
• LPC 80 controlling 1000 feet of CK iColor Accent, 140 CK iW Cove, 1400 CK Cove MX, 700 feet of CK iColor Graze, 9 CK iColor Blasts and 10 Philips LedLine2

Details of all Philips Lighting and Philips Color Kinetics fixtures can be found on their websites, where you can also read the Philips press release.

In partnership with architect studio Fundación Metrópoli, Philips Lighting has installed a remarkable representation of the city of Bilbao in the Spanish Pavilion of the World Expo 2010.  The massive scale model measures 13 x 8 metres and includes 1900 nodes of Philips iColorFlex SL, individually illuminating each building, and 80 metres of blue Flexitube to create the Bilbao River, all controlled by a Pharos LPC 20.

The Light Sculpture displays the urban evolution of Bilbao and represents three Bilbao revolutions: the Industrial revolution, the Urban revolution of the past 25 years and the Knowledge revolution – the city’s planning for the 21st Century.

Bilbao city model. Photos © Markus Schroll, Fundación Metrópoli

Philips CK iColor Flex SL range was the preferred technology because every LED node could be addressed individually, allowing the designer to light any building at any time in any colour and create all the dynamic lighting effects and animations within the sculpture.

The 20 DMX universe Pharos LPC X controller is fully synchronised with the audio and video images projected onto the pavilion walls. Each aspect of the sculpture changes constantly, expressing a luminous choreography supporting the spectacular projected images of urban and economic transformation of the city for an immersive multimedia and interactive tour.

The control system had to meet multiple demands: control twelve universes of individual fixtures within this complex array, keep synchronised to the video projection and audio and create the wide variety of effects required by the designer.  Philips Controls System Consultant and project programmer, Bas Hoksbergen, comments, “The Pharos LPC 20 was able to do this with ease”.

Bilbao city model. Photos © Markus Schroll, Fundación Metrópoli

Video and additional photos can be found on our earlier post.