It’s a good start to getting across a message which is important, but too easy to make it over-preachy or just plain dull. That was the problem the New York Fire Department had. The new approach came about after Tishman Speyer Properties, who manage the property of the Rockefeller Center, offered the Fire Department space in the building for a token rent. The Fire Department accepted, and turned to BKS/K Architects to create the Fire Zone.
Once the fire-truck has lured people in, it acts as the first stage of the themed show: an alarm, a fire-fighter and a video-projection showing a fire truck’s journey to the fire. The large garage door that acts as the projection screen then swings open allowing visitors into an area that re-creates the smouldering remains of burnt-out New York apartments. Video montages projected around the room from multiple projectors then allow the survivors of fires to tell their stories: with each, lighting and sound transform the room to show what happened to cause that fire.
To bring the exhibition to life, the Fire Department and architects turned to New York-based designers Dawn Chiang for lighting, Tom Morse for sound and Mediaworks to create the storylines and video. Chiang’s lighting had to deal with the room as a whole for the narrative sections, with a lit area for the group leader. She then had to light each area of the display separately in both pre-fire and burning states. To achieve this, she assembled a tightly-packed rig of mainly ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars into a pipe grid hidden in the exhibition’s roof; there are also MR16 battens at the top and bottom of the New York skyline skycloth. The fire effects were created using overlaid rotating gobos in GAM Twinspins, plus a selection of split-colours, occasionally supplemented by fan-blown silk flame effects. ETC’s Dimmer Doubling was used, with Sensor dimmers driving 77v long-life lamps in the Source Fours, to keep the dimmer count down. The show is controlled from an ETC Expression 3 LPC, with the lighting installation carried out by Westsun.
Chiang’s lighting is complemented by Tom Morse’s sound, with its selection of spine-tingling roaring fire sounds. Effects are replayed from two Akai S5000s through five LCS LD88 racks. Sound, lighting and the hard-disk based video playback are run from a Conductor showcontroller.
The design team have one last trick: before leaving, visitors are asked to follow the recommended procedure in the event of a fire, and check the door to see whether it is hot. They do - and are surprised to discover that it is, courtesy of an embedded heating plate. It adds a final touch of realism before everyone exits into the inevitable shop.
Rob Halliday
