Beauty at the top of Lyon’s tallest skyscraper
Celebrating a 10-year partnership with the city of Lyon, France's annual Fête des Lumières (Festival of Lights), Color Kinetics unveiled a striking gift to the city as part of the December 2012 festival: a one-of-a-kind, dynamic lighting installation on the peak of the Tour Part-Dieu, Lyon's tallest skyscraper.
The tower's apex, a 23-meter tall four-sided pyramid, was previously lit with Philips MAZDA 1000 W metal-halide floodlights. For the retrofit, these fixtures were replaced with ArchiPoint iColor Powercore luminaires, daylight-visible exterior LED points featuring intelligent color light. Each of these 20 cm diameter luminaires features a light output of more than 500 lumens with an optional translucent dome lens, ensuring that the tower is visible from miles away.
Luminaires were installed in a triangular grid arrangement with 45 on each side of the tower's peak, for a total of 180 individually addressable "pixels". The entire installation is controlled by a single Pharos LPC2 controller, enabling the tower to display low-resolution streaming video, graphics, and dynamic color. For the 2012 Festival, the tower featured a nine-minute looping program that demonstrated some of the system's capabilities. The program consisted of a flowing progression of warm and cool color washes, white light displays, low-resolution animations, and text projected on a grand scale.
Jean François Zurawick, event director for the city of Lyon, commented on the success of this installation. "The feedback and comments on the lighting of the dome are very good and it will be a real footprint in Lyon's skyline," Zurawick said.
As an additional benefit, the tower's new lighting system is predicted to consume approximately 87% less energy than the previous metal-halide system under typical conditions.
