The centerpiece is the Car Distribution Centre with its two glass-encased car towers, or silos - the landmark of the Autostadt - each rising 52m into the sky. Used as storage for new Volkswagens, the two towers are connected to the Volkswagen factory by a 700m underground tunnel.
Thomas Wlocka, project manager of Technical Event Management at Autostadt, who was also responsible for the lighting design, talks about the illumination of the two towers: "In the course of the installation of the passenger elevators in the towers, a lighting design for the car tower 'Discovery' had to be created that would enhance the technical elegance inside the towers. At the same time, the lighting of the towers for the annual winter event had to be adapted.
"The task was to create a lighting production equally effective, both for the visitors in the elevator and those outside in the park. For the exterior impression to occur as expected, identical implementation was required in both towers."
By interconnecting the elevator control with moving head luminaires the lighting became flexible and dynamic. 16 Martin MAC 2000 Wash luminaires are utilised per tower, eight in the basement and another eight on the highest story. The MAC 2000 Wash is an automated 1200 W moving head wash light with full colour mixing capable of long throw projection.
The luminaires in the basement can be moved, in order not to obstruct possible maintenance work. The luminaires on the highest story are mounted above steel gratings and shine downward through the gratings. Thus the lighting production for the winter event could be recreated. Thanks to a flexible control system linked to the elevator control, along with the rotational characteristic of the moving head luminaires, the various phases of the ride through the inside of the tower can be accentuated with different moods.
The control commands for the various moods are accessed at the elevator's switchgear cabinet, which is used to start the individual lighting sequences. The lighting production has been planned as a permanent installation. It is also interesting to note that the power consumption of the entire installation has decreased by one third in comparison to the original lighting.
(Jim Evans)
