The first luminic intervention with the latest technology in a temple in Guadalajara allowed the parishioners and inhabitants of the city to enjoy a show without precendetes.
Richard Santa Sanchez
During the month of August of each year, the church of the living God column and support of the truth, the light of the AR world, better known as church the light of the world", celebrates the holy convocation, an event that brings together more than 300,000 people from 46 countries.
As this high number of people does not fit inside the temple, which has the capacity to accommodate 12,500 seated people, to celebrate the sacrament they must use the surrounding streets. Therefore, for 2011 and 2012 the church leaders decided to make a special show illuminating the façade of the temple.
For this purpose, the company Brambilight was appointed, which designed a façade makeup system that allowed to change what existed until that moment, a system of luminaires with metal additives of high consumption, of approximately 1000w mostly, so it was only turned on weekends and special days.
This system lacked control of intensity and colors, since they were installed at the same time as the construction of the building as one of the main novelties for the time, that is, at the beginning of the 90s, time in which there were no versatile systems that allowed several options of color and control games like those of today.
According to Adrian Ipiña Trujillo, of the Berea Cultural House, a company that intergred video and audio lighting in the project, the building object of the intervention has a height of 87 meters on an elliptical land, which is used every day for religious services attending in five schedules more than 5,000 people.
"We carried out a physical demonstration in a section of the building to the international director of the church, Samuel Joaquín Flores, in which he could observe not only the aesthetic benefit of the intervention, but also the energy savings with the proposed system," he explained.
AV Integration
Being clear about the requirements and expectations of the church directors, the expert professionals of the Berea Cultural House designed an intelligent lighting system in four RGBA colors, based on solid state systems, low consumption and DMX control for the façade of the temple.
The engineer Jorge Waldo Brambila, General Director of Brambilight, was in charge of manufacturing the system to order, in addition to providing the control software for the more than 400 IP65 outdoor luminaires and 24 LEDs, divided into equal amounts between reds, greens, blues and amber, of 1w of the Osram brand.
Adrian Ipiña Trujillo indicated that today these lights are controlled and powered by CPUs that supply power to six lamps each, in addition to receiving and assigning DMX-512 signal channels for each lamp. Each color has control of 255 levels, which generates combinations of more than 4,000 million colors (2554 = 4228250625).
The control system consists of an eight-universe DMX interface of the Acclaim Lighting brand, model DMX-ALN-08A, managed from a computer where the Madrix software is installed with license for 16 universes. Everything was installed in anticipation of future interventions in the interior and the surrounding buildings.
This lighting system was integrated into the high definition video infrastructure with the installation of fiber optics and its converters, Aja, Blackmagic and Kramer, which together with the Sony NX5 cameras and the MCS-8M switcher of the same company, all in HD, serve to stream on the official website and broadcast the events through a local television channel, Televisa Guadalajara.
In addition, it has audio composed in its main hall by two linear systems with 10 speakers of the Nexo brand model GEO 8, monitors and delay's of the same series, a Yamaha M7CL console, Nexia distribution system of Biamp, microphone of the Shure brand inside and Electro-Voice speaker systems for the outside.
During church festivities, systems for live translation can also be used for attendees of mainly Anglo-Saxon speaking and some other languages. And on the cusp of the temple is installed an argon laser beam with 30W power that is seen more than 15 kilometers away.
Looking for suppliers
Adrian Ipiña says that the main problems they had to face during the intervention in the Church the light of the world, were mostly logistical, because due to the large size of the project they could not find suppliers that could supply them with all the equipment and systems required.
"Adding to this the weather, because while we were doing the installation the rainy season began, which caused us to have longer working days to meet the project. In addition, being a building in continuous use, we had to work with greater caution, because most of the facilities were inside, we had to wait, for the safety of the attendees of the services, for the religious services to finish to continue with the installation of pipes, wiring and racks, "he said.
Why the brands and technologies used? As indicated, they chose LED technology for being the most efficient and durable and the brands were selected for knowing the experience of the manufacturers. "They were also chosen thanks to the support of engineer Jorge Waldo, who designed the luminaires according to our needs and did not offer a product for another application, providing us with technical support and a wide guarantee."
More than aesthetics
Being the first building in all of Guadalajara to have a light makeup on its façade with the latest technology, the intervention in the Church the light of the world caused a great impact on its visitors and the entire population for its aesthetic change, which can be seen from many points of the city and even when traveling at night by plane over Guadalajara.
But not only aesthetic benefits were achieved. Adrian Ipiña Trujillo highlighted the economic and ecological advantages, because the installed system consumes less energy, and that is why they can turn it on every night and yet the cost of electricity is lower than what was had with the previous system.
Another highlight is that the system has more than 30 sequences of different effects and colors and on holidays (local, national and international) it is configured as the emblematic buildings and monuments of the world.
Among other campaigns, it has been used to support the International Day of the Fight against Breast Cancer in October, for which the building had pink effects; in the month of September it is programmed with effects on the colors of the Mexican flag: green, white and red; International AIDS Day in red; World Diabetes Day in Blue, among others.
"Our client was pleased with the result, as well as proud because it was mostly installed and is operated by people who profess this belief. It is worth mentioning that it is a cause of pride for the members, and even for the neighbors of this colony, who although they do not profess the same religion look in amazement at the multicolored effects shown on the façade of this construction, "concluded the representative of Casa Cultural Berea.
Leave your comment