In 2014, the museum called when they could no longer get parts for the 1998 dimming and control system. Upon visiting the museum, Visual Terrain CEO Lisa Passamonte Green noted, "They had started to upgrade to LEDs, but it was early technology, and the light output and colour consistency was not what we can achieve with the newest sources. The museum was darker, and our original design was no longer evident.
"It's rare we get an opportunity to completely re-do a project that we did many years ago," said Green. "I saw this as an opportunity to bring the museum up to date, utilize the latest LED sources and control systems, and improve upon the work that won us the Guth award."
Since Visual Terrain frequently partners with Bandit Lites, Green reached out to Bandit's director of sales and installation, Chris Barbee. Together, they looked to create a solution that would use most of the existing circuitry, positions and placements, while providing high-quality, energy-efficient fixtures that are easier to maintain.
The two companies worked closely with the museum to upgrade the dimming and control system to an ETC Sensor 3 Rack and Paradigm Control System. The system needed to bridge the technology between the original lighting, the new lighting, and a new Show Control system, which was designed and provided by Associates in Media Engineering (AME) founder Benjamin Lien. Lien was on the original museum design team in 1998, and returned to upgrade the audio, visual and show control systems.
Visual Terrain designed the look and specified the fixtures; Bandit's sales and installation team procured and installed more than 600 lights, including 400 various Gantom fixtures, 80 MR16 LED track heads, 60 various Cree LED retrofit kits and 30 Osram Kreios LED floodlights.
(Jim Evans)
