The original lighting scheme did not live up to Trinity Christian Centre's aspirations to become a neighbourhood night time landmark. In fact, even the next-door gas station outshone it and made more of an impact on the surroundings with lights. In consequence, ONG&ONG (Lighting Design) were commissioned to design and implement a new lighting concept for this house of worship.
ONG&ONG (Lighting Design) installed 14 Exterior 400 Image Projectors, 28 Exterior 410 fixtures, all controlled by Martin's M-PC controller. Inspired by the original visions, ONG&ONG set out to use the light to mimic the hues of colours of the Israeli skies and to tell meaningful stories to the community.
"Our task was to enhance and improve existing architectural features in the night," said Swee Hong Ong, Director at ONG&ONG (Lighting Design). "To ensure the success of the lighting design we had to conduct various on-site tests and consider the surroundings and conditions before we could propose our idea for the new design. This process is a lot more demanding than designing a new project from scratch."
After a series of shootouts to test various fixtures from different manufacturers in relation to their wash quality and colour rendition, Martin fixtures from the Exterior range were chosen to project the new design onto the facade of the building. The fixtures were mounted on poles, equipped with lenses and glare shields to reach all the folds in the facade and complement the geometry of the architectural surface.
"The Exterior range from Martin proved to have the rich, saturated colour wash that we were looking for," said Ong. "The fixtures are easily controllable and unlike the other fixtures we tested, the exact calibration enables all the fixtures to display the same colours."
The new lighting design attempts to create a connection between the church and its community. Pre-programmed sequences display messages of faith and joy to spectators, and colours and projected patterns add a dimensionality to the architecture. The animation and vibrancy of the colours mirror the dynamism of the sky.
"Apart from depicting the sky, as an added benefit the colour scenes we've worked on together with Trinity also works to relate to the events and festivities celebrated by the church," said Ong. The animated scenes and effects would not have been possible without our great installer, Kurihara Kogyo. We can only be happy with the result we achieved together."
(Jim Evans)
