latest news headlines
MA Lighting System Solution Controls Westfield
Westfield London, the new £1.6 billion West London retail and leisure destination - and the largest inner city shopping destination in Europe - has its large Atrium house and special events area lighting controlled by a grandMA replay unit. An MA NSP data network is also run throughout The Atrium for fast DMX processing, and a stand-alone grandMA light console is used for controlling lighting for the myriad of special events staged within the space, and is also available for any outdoor shows.
Adding a spectacular new landmark to west London, the building, designed by Westfield's in-house architects, has an undulating glass roof made from thousands of glass panels. US architects Michael Gabellini and Kimberly Sheppard designed The Village area for luxury retailers, and London-based Softroom designed The Balcony, a lounge-style dining area. The Atrium itself is the size of a football pitch.
DMX data for all lighting fixtures is distributed throughout the event space including The Balcony and numerous roof trusses via Cat 6 and fibre optic cables (switchable dependent on the distance of the fixture from the grandMA replay unit) - into 73 facility panels in the floor, roof and The Balcony, and ten MA NSPs, all fed back into the grandMA replay unit.
For shows and special events taking place in The Atrium, there are amongst others 10 Vari*Lite VL3000 spots, 10 Vari*Lite VL3000 washes, 92 JTE PixelPARs and approximately 40 generic light sources available, plus the 300 ColourKinetics Colour Blast LED fixtures illuminating the roof structure. The Atrium's ‘house' lighting rig consists of 300 Enlighten/ETC Source Four Pars and Profiles, 100 circuits of architectural lights and 60 switchable 32a 3 Phase supplies in the roof void. Together, these all consume nine universes of DMX.
Westfield London's technical manager Simon Jones became involved in the project initially in June 2007, and then came on board permanently to design and specify the rig, and co-ordinated the lighting installation 14 weeks before Westfield London was declared open by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
Jones specified MA Lighting because he has used the platform since about 2003 and thinks the grandMA replay unit is the best option to be at the centre of a rock solid stable installed system. He worked with White Light's Dave Isherwood on the network design and comments. "I've done some neat networking in the past with MA and it's very good."
On the console choice he says: "The grandMA brand is widely known in conference, corporate, rock ‘n' roll and theatre worlds, so I didn't think twice when it came to choosing grandMA light as the show lighting desk."
The control system was specified by Simon Jones, and supplied together with all the lighting equipment by White Light.
In picture: Mayor of London Boris Johnson opens Westfield photo Justin Sutcliffe
15th January 2009
HEADLINES
news archive
search stories
FOOTNOTE: Select the news type you require in the red band above; this will enable you to see the current news stories from that section
© 1999 - 2012 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
