Pharos Architectural Controls were chosen by lighting designers Michael Grubb Studio to bring a new audio-visual art installation and event space to life in Bournemouth city centre.
The new art installation outside The Old Fire Station on Holdenhurst Road, known as Chine Forest, has been designed to create a new focal point for residents and visitors.
Christchurch and Poole Council appointed Michael Grubb Studio to provide the lighting design for this immersive public artwork, in collaboration with the artist Juliet Quintero and sound designers, Coda to Coda.
A Pharos Designer LPC 1 (Lighting Playback Controller 1) was deployed to provide the control element for this unique space, which features 17 steel columns of varying heights and integrates light and sound elements.
The LPC is an all-in-one control solution that features individually controllable and independently running timelines and scenes, allowing for fully customisable, pre-programmed lighting effects.
The overall effect is designed to celebrate Bournemouth’s famous ‘chines and pines’: the deep, narrow ravines cut into the coastal rock by the sea, matched with the beautiful tree life that lines the headlands.
Each scene utilises varying levels of brightness, opacity and groups of colours that – complimented by the sound scenes – represent the light and life of the forest, heathland, river and sea of the Chines and Pines.
The space was designed as part of Landsdowne’s Transformation Project, which aims to reinvigorate and repurpose a number of public realm spaces across the area.
Urbis Schréder supplied the luminaires from the manufacturer’s energy-efficient 1m RGB ILUM MARK linear range, which, owing to their slim profile, integrated seamlessly into the columns. Each fixture has four controllable RGB sections allowing a finer control resolution for the Designer LPC to address individual sections for greater versatility.
Mark de Gruyter, Sales Director at Pharos Architectural Controls, said: “Contributing to the creation of new spaces that residents can be proud of is one the highlights of this job. Pharos controllers are renowned for being smart, hard-working and reliable when a project demands synchronicity, ingenuity and innovation. We provide the tools to create designs that inspire, entertain and evoke, and that’s just what Chine Forest is all about.”
Chris Shephard, Director of Economic Development at BCP Council, said: “It’s great to celebrate this new space and artwork with partners who helped to make it possible, and those who will benefit most from the many improvements that we have made to the area – I look forward to seeing events brought forward and hosted here, as well as seeing the Chine Forest artwork capture people’s imagination.”
Projects Credits:
Client: Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Council
Scheme designer: Dallas Pierce Quintero
Lighting design: Michael Grubb Studio
Lighting control: Pharos Architectural Controls
Audio designers: Coda to Coda
Luminaire manufacturer: Urbis Schréder
Photo credit: Alex Bland
