Like most small towns, it has a town square around which are clustered restaurants and boulevard cafés. And like all self-respecting town squares, a tower presides benignly over the activities. Melrose Arch management wanted to make more of this key feature of the area. Ideally, something was needed that would be noticeable and memorable, but subtle. The solution was programmable automated colour-changing lighting to give the building 'life' and character.
While casting around for a company who could meet their needs, architect Graham Wilson of Osmond Lange, the company responsible for the entire Melrose Arch project, came across Bruce Schwartz and Electrosonic. The Melrose Arch tower was the perfect opportunity to create Johannesburg's first fully-automated outdoor colour-changing installation with the use of Martin Architectural's range of Exterior fixtures.
It took two months and numerous attempts to get all the decision-makers together in one place at the same time. There were two on-site mock-ups to determine the best luminaire and the ideal mounting position for the chosen luminaires. Finally, it was decided to use the Martin Exterior 200: the fixture is completely weatherproof, sealed to withstand all conditions and has a lamp life of 6,000 hours.
Once the go-ahead to complete the project had been given, the luminaires were delivered from the Martin factory in Denmark within 10 days. Electrosonic's ever-reliable Robert Izzett installed the fixtures and cabling in a day and Bruce Schwartz completed final programming over two nights. To control the fixtures, a calendar based DMX playback unit - Martin's LightCorder - was used. The majority of the programming was done at Electrosonic's premises, using advanced modeling software to visualize the programmed scenes. The scenes were saved to a memory card, which was then simply slotted into the LightCorder.
The reactions to the tower of light from the restaurateurs and diners in the area have all been positive. "It provides a constant, yet subtly evolving, light show that is pleasing, intriguing, but not so distracting that it demands cutlery be downed or conversation stopped," comments Schwartz.
(Ruth Rossington)
