Zapopan’s Basilica and America’s Square

The Zapopan Basilica (Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Zapopan) and America’s Square (Plaza de las Americas John Paul II) lighting project is a strategy for the economic, touristic and cultural rejuvenation of the historical center of the city of Zapopan in the Mexican state of Jalisco. The plan aims to use innovative lighting solutions to recover the city’s night space, inviting tourists and citizens to enjoy unique, memorable outdoor experiences after dark. Its ambitious design objectives focused on three key themes: social welfare, technology and urban development.

Social welfare

• Create a new image for the city, using light to express its identity and promote activities
• Conceive of a comprehensive project that improves the quality of service
• Provide visual comfort through high-quality lighting that also offers a sense of security
• Illuminate tourist attractions to create more pleasant spaces for tourists and locals alike

Technology

• Create an infrastructure to enable remote management of lighting services in real time
• Enable lighting control via a single operation from anywhere, without the need for technicians
• Visualize tones, triggers and scenes in real time through strategically placed cameras that allow 360° monitoring of the building and square

Urban development

• Ensure a scalable solution that can accommodate the development of growing and increasingly interconnected city over time
• Increase the number of visitors while supporting the city’s local trade
• Generate energy savings and reduce maintenance costs
• Reduce light pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

Implementing the project

During the development of the project, mechanisms to enable the effective, harmonious and sustainable operation of the system were implemented. The result was an infrastructure that guarantees the optimal management of lighting services and the automated control of all installed equipment.

Premium products

Graze Powercore luminaires were chosen specifically to highlight the basilica’s architectural features ranging from surface textures and molding details to the windows and dome. The Blast Powercore luminaire provides white light throughout the square, and the C-Splash 2 provides vibrant, changing colors in the square’s water fountains. The project also features Lumec Metroscape for park, path and street lighting and Christie 22K mapping projectors to create projection displays.

Providing smarter services

The Information and communications technology (ICT) management tools have massively improved Zapopan’s efficiency and helped to establish it as a smart city. The new lighting infrastructure has enabled Zapopan to provide smarter services and facilitate better citizen interaction and enriches the visitor experience to its historic center. Zapopan is now a city immersed in technology that makes public services more efficient using open and transparent information captured in real time by interconnected devices that converge in a sustainable and responsible city model.

The results

The Zapopan Basilica and America’s Square lighting strategy, launched in July 2017, has improved the economic, touristic and cultural development of the area. A balanced relationship between the government and citizens has helped this scalable project to boos the quality of life in the city and significantly improve the tourist experience and the city’s image.