The event was a success and ultimately the town's tourist office chose to invest in the lighting to illuminate both the town and the base of the ski area. La Norma wished to associate the dynamic lighting scheme with the resort's new blue and rose-colored logo as well as the town's new 'cosy' branding concept. Therefore, a comparable ambience was created across the ski resort but with variations between pale and more saturated colour schemes, thus creating varied visual images with focus on specific parts of the town.
Martin Architectural France brought all technical and artistic aspects, including lighting design, based upon an architectural analysis of the city. This included a hierarchic research of the various elements to emphasis, an analysis of the circulation paths of the town, conceptual suggestions, implementation plans, wiring plans and supervision of the installation, as well as lighting programming. Martin Architectural, working with the La Norma tourist office, subsequently supplied a wide range of Martin Architectural luminaires and installation proceeded during the winter of 2004/2005.
Most of the exterior lighting is from Martin Architectural's Exterior range of IP65-rated colour changing luminaires - Exterior 200, Exterior 600 and Exterior 600 Compact fixtures. Placed along the pedestrian lanes, and lighting the fountain in the centre of town, are Exterior 200 and Exterior 600 luminaires. Lighting the façade of the La Norma House are more Exterior 200 and 600 fixtures with barndoor-equipped Exterior 600 Compact and Exterior 600 luminaires illuminating the Chalet. The town's chapel, situated at the entrance of town, is lit by Exterior 200s with the snow park illuminated by more Exterior 600s. Located inside a bar, near the area's base, are Martin MAC 2000 Profiles used to project images onto La Norma's slopes at night.
Restaurants and various shops are equipped with Martin MiniMAC Maestro image projectors along with Martin Mania DC1 and Mania DC2 decorative effect lights. Independent control is from a Martin PC-based Light Jockey2 and Martin LightCorder playback recorders.
The principal challenge for Martin France was to realise the installation in a very short amount of time - execution and planning of the fixed installation was completed in a two month period in late 2004. No quality concerns have been reported. "A beneficial aspect is the low maintenance involved but what really interested La Norma were the limitless opportunities to create a new perception of the town during nighttime," comments Bruno Garros. "The snow and color provides great creative opportunities."
(Lee Baldock)
