Owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, Inbursa features 230 species of sea life across 11,500sq.ft of space and is one of the largest aquariums in the world. Officially opened in June of this year, the building consists of four levels, all but one underground. The tour begins at the lowest floor, which represents the bottom of the sea with pirate ship and sharks, and ascends through coral reef and a manta ray pool to the Beach and Rainforest, culminating on the ground floor at one of the venue's main attractions, the Penguinarium.
Lighting designer Cynthia Ortiz worked together with project manager and architect Edgar Delgado to capture the aquatic atmosphere and conceptualize lighting effects for each space. Ortiz specified Elation LED fixtures for the Aquarium's multiple spaces, supervised the installation, including the final arrangement and positioning of the lighting fixtures, and programmed the lighting looks using Elation's PC-based Compu Show lighting software. "The flexibility to create scenes and the friendly interface of the software allowed us to conceptualize the spaces and atmospheres and get the best out of the lighting fixtures," she commented.
The Elation lighting package includes RGBW Arena Par lights used in the Beach (La Playita) and manta ray area (outside the manta ray pool) where Ortiz specified them because of their brightness and color capability.
"Both areas required RGBW but are used in very different ways," she says. "For the Beach, we wanted a uniform light, with bright walls and scene illuminations from noon to sunset. Another thing to consider in this area was the species of marine animal. There could not be red tones in the lighting so the sunset scene ended up being very subtle. At the manta ray area (a darker area) we wanted to highlight the texture of the floor and since this is a big open area the Arena Par was the best solution to achieve that."
Installed in the Rainforest are a complement of Elation ELED Fresnel 150W LED lights used by Ortiz for their photometry and functionality. "We sought to create a 'real' atmosphere with light passing right through the trees and vegetation and the ELED Fresnel are ideal for this," she says. More ELED Fresnels are used in the manta ray pool.
In basement 3, the lowest and darkest floor, IP-67 rated 3W Elation ELAR 2A04B recessed fixtures colour the space in blue light. "This fixture was installed as a signal light for a stair on the route so that visitors could see it," Ortiz explains. "The colour blue was chosen because we are on the bottom of the sea and most of the light for this floor is in these tones except from some accents to give the space more life."
Used to project coloured light and highlight the texture of the rocks In the Penguinarium are Elation EPAR TRI LED PAR Cans while "behind the penguin's pond I used the ADJ Mega Bar 60 to create an Arctic (Aurora Borealis) effect, all in blue," Ortiz explains. (Inbursa Aquarium houses a host of ADJ lighting as well - details in the equipment list below.) "Here, RGB has been used mostly for its versatility because the main colour is the blue," she continues, "but there is an option for the scene to change during the day, mixing up some of the Red and Green to get deeper or lighter tones. It also works very well to recreate the kind of light the penguins need," Ortiz says, while stating that natural light is also used in the space.
(Jim Evans)
