Instructive and exciting

Friedrichshafen Airport has a new landmark: the Dornier Museum for aeronautics in Friedrichshafen is shaped like a hangar, impressively representing the fascination of flying. While, during the day, light penetrates into the building through large windows, the museum turns into a glittering point of light at night - with a lighting installation by James Turrell adding to the effect.

In the museum, visitors enter a bright, welcoming foyer. TECTON continuous rows and Vivo pendant luminaires make for a pleasant atmosphere. From the spacious entrance area with cafeteria and shop, visitors get into the museum box above, which illustrates the history of the Dornier company and the milestones of aviation in eleven rooms. Model airplanes, drawings and other historical exhibits are highlighted in glass display cabinets by means of batten luminaires and compact LED spots. The lighting design makes do without any windows, structuring the exhibition rooms in relatively bright and relatively dark zones that provide for variety on a tour through the museum, highlighting certain exhibits. The hangar contains the heart of the museum: a large hall with historical airplanes, many of them veritable curiosities. Slotlight luminaires with a special louvre ensure uniform illumination without undesired shadows.

To highlight the exterior facade during the night, James Turrell has created a lighting work of art bringing visitors' perception to new dimensions with its harmonious colour sequence. Thanks to innovative 16-bit control, the luminaires’ colour space was extended to several million colours, providing nearly unlimited freedom in lighting composition.

Korea can boast a new superlative: the Galleria Centercity shopping mall in Cheonan. This huge building is visible from afar as one reaches the end of the journey to Cheonan, located 80 km from Seoul. It is not just the grand scale of this “consumer temple” that is breathtaking – the vast 12,600 m2 media façade is also huge. Dynamic light shows produced by more than 22,000 LED lighting points wrap the structure in a shimmering skin that stands out impressively against its urban setting. The high-power LED spotlights specially developed by luminaire manufacturer Zumtobel are designed to merge almost imperceptibly into the façade. Thanks to them, the coloured lighting sequences that ripple across the surface of the building – sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly – exert an even greater fascination on visitors to the mall.

12,399 of the 22,000 luminaires used are 3.6 W RGB luminaires, while the remaining units (approximately 10,000) are 1.2 W white luminaires. This wide-area indirect pixel concept guarantees extremely high efficiency in relation to the surface area to be illuminated as well as harmonious luminance levels.

 Zumtobel created this unique lighting installation in cooperation with renowned Bonn lighting design firm ag Licht and the prestigious Amsterdam architecture firm UNStudio.

Computer-based animations developed by UNStudio were also integrated into the lighting design. The installed DMX control system ensures individual programming of individual LED spots and paints animations on the surface of the building accurately in every detail.

Galleria Centercity is a striking example of how façades can become interactive elements of the urban landscape and the way in which urban spaces can be shaped by light – without this indirect, glare-free light causing any nuisance in adjacent areas of the town.

The Bauarena building is striking on account of its mere size of 25,000 square metres, comprising five storeys. The supraregional center of excellence addressing all issues related to building and construction is a very conspicuous sight along one of Volketswil’s main road axes, although situated behind another building.

At night, 100 LED light lines create a vibrant luminous shell for the Bauarena in Volketswil, Switzerland, with red colour sequences matched perfectly to the Bauarena’s logo. This unique lighting installation by Zumtobel has turned the building into an eye-catcher, demonstrating the importance of sophisticated façade illumination in order to attract people’s attention and enhance a company’s image. If required, the intelligent control system allows to create up to 15 different lighting scenes.

Some 100 window-height Hilio LED light lines with variable colours, with an output of 100 W each, were installed on the four façade faces of the huge building. Matching the red Bauarena logo, they shine at varying intensity levels during the night. A frosted linear tube was used for manufacturing the light lines, in order to achieve a perfect colour mix and to avoid individual LED light points becoming perceptible. The integrated cooling attachments made of aluminium section ensure appropriate cooling of the LED modules. A DMX system, which can be controlled via the building’s technical system, provides exciting brightness changes of the individual LED light lines.

Once Fussach was dominated by exca¬vators, now it is much more picturesque with boats and yachts. A former gravel pit has been converted into a sparkling new harbour on Lake Constance. The Nordwesthaus building designed by Baumschlager Eberle rises 14 meters directly out of the water. Its unique architecture makes it an impressive addition to the area. Underneath the glass cube are decorative curved con¬crete walls that blend perfectly with the natural surroundings of reed and trees.

In the evening the Nordwesthaus is a real eye-catcher. Dynamic colour sequences bring the unique building façade to life, creating a wide variety of displays within the basic architectural elements. When the building is bathed in greenish blue light it takes on the appearance of reeds that are being swayed in a gentle night-time breeze over the lake. Yellow and red shades give the building a fiery glow so the Nordwest¬haus becomes the fourth element along¬side water, earth and air. Slow changes of colour in cool white tones are mirrored in the lake to produce fascinating reflections of infinite variety. Go inside the multi-func¬tional building and the effect is just as cap¬tivating. The lighting scenes draw people in and give the entire space a pleasant atmosphere without being intrusive.

Zumtobel has created an easy-to-use solution for this project that shows the wide range of design options that LED technology can provide. The 125 LED spotlights developed in cooperation with Baumschlager Eberle specifically for this project are cleverly arranged in the façade of the building to produce optimum lighting. The 12 integrated RGB LEDs per luminaire offer an immense spectrum of more than 16 million colours. This means that the colour of the lighting can change subtly from one shade to the next through the entire colour spectrum. The compact luminaires are fitted with asymmetrical optics to ensure that the amoeba-like voids in the concrete walls are fully illuminated. The optics spread the light wide in the voids in the walls and also focus it to the sides in the room and also to the outside. This means that there is very little scattered light inside the building, which in turn helps create a pleasant atmosphere and ensures that people are not disturbed by the built-in spotlights. DMX control enables dynamic lighting sequences to be created. It is these sequences that are helping to turn the building into a sightseeing attraction.

30 recessed Zumtobel downlights installed into the ceiling, using low-voltage halogen lamps, complete the unique lighting ensemble of the Nordwesthaus' interior. Thanks to their discreet design the downlights blend seamlessly into the building's architectural design concept. Their smooth accents underline the fascinating spatial impact.