Somerset House in London has been brought to life with an updated lighting design, the result of a close collaboration between Pharos Architectural Controls and GVA Lighting. The dynamic, colour-changing illumination accentuates the building’s neoclassical architecture while providing greater energy efficiency, colour consistency, and smooth dimming and transition effects.
Dating back to 1547, Somerset House is one of London’s most historic landmarks. Since the late 18th century, it has served as a hub for art and culture, and today it is home to the UK’s largest creative community, hosting exhibitions, concerts, and events throughout the year.
To bring the GVA-supplied fixtures – COLOR-STREAM, COLOR-AMP and INFINITY – to life, GVA specified a number of products from lighting controls specialist Pharos Architectural Controls, including a 20-universe Designer LPC X (Lighting Playback Controller X), the Designer TPS (Touch Panel Station), the Designer EDN 20 (Ethernet Data Node 20) and the Designer PoE (Power-over-Ethernet) switch – all connected to Pharos Cloud.
The Designer LPC X is an all-in-one control solution for themed entertainment and LED lighting installations featuring individually controllable and independently running timelines and scenes that allow you to build dynamic, precise, fully customisable pre-programmed lighting effects with the freedom of real-time manual overrides and the versatility of powerful show control and integration features. The LPC X offers an extreme level of power and integration, making it an ideal lighting control solution for architectural and landmark lighting installations requiring significant channel counts, ideal for the Somerset House lighting refurbishment.
The Designer TPS, available in 5 and 8-inch sizes, is an elegant interface with a customisable, capacitive touchscreen, compatible with any Pharos Designer controller. This technology allows you to create multiple pages of lighting controls including buttons, sliders, keypads and colour pickers, and configure their appearance and visual feedback for the facility team to select scenes on the fly and to override colour and intensity as required.
The Designer EDN is a convenient and scalable solution, providing cost-effective Ethernet-distributed DMX ports for large control projects, and the Designer PoE provides a simple power and networking solution for four Power-over-Ethernet devices with two separate Ethernet uplink ports.
Completing the system, the award-winning Pharos Cloud provides simple, secure remote lighting installation control and management, from any Internet-connected device, at anytime, anywhere in the world allowing the client additional remote access and GVA to receive system status updates and to offer immediate and ongoing support to their customer.
Ryan Sainsbury, Regional Sales Manager for UK, Ireland, N. Europe & Benelux at Pharos Architectural Controls, said: “We were thrilled to work alongside GVA to breathe new life into this architectural masterpiece, highlighting the rich history and cultural significance of Somerset House, while paying homage to the cultural relevance it resonates today.”
Now, the façade of Somerset House has been revitalised with a dynamic display of colour-changing light, washing the building in vibrant hues that honour its architectural heritage while reflecting the creativity within its walls.
Project Credits
Client: The Somerset House Trust
Architect: Sir William Chambers
Lighting Manufacturer: GVA Lighting
Lighting Controls: Pharos Architectural Controls
Lighting Designer: Atelier Ten
Electrical Contractor: CES
Photography: GVA Lighting
