MISCELLANIA

The owners were happy to share a collection of inspirational images they had organised as a sort of ‘mood board’. This helped us gauge the vibe that the owners were after. They seemed to have a soft spot for linear lights in unconventional arrangements. Also included were many dream-like Las Vegas-style images with clashing candy colours.

Principally, it seemed the owners wanted us to do as much as possible with the small budget they could offer. They needed something versatile that could cater to anything from hard dance nights, to sit-down live music events.

The animated DIALux renders represent my original lighting proposal. Unfortunately, Melbourne’s 4th lockdown caused further budget constraints, effectively halving the number of wall and pendant lights we had to work with. We eventually agreed on a more scattered and spaced-out lighting arrangement. This would allow us to retain the ‘all-encompassing’ effect at the cost of some granularity in control.

Buying brand-new lighting equipment was out of reach of the budget. Making everything from scratch was the only way we could afford to do anything significant.

The pendant lights are a variation of a prototype I had previously made in my spare time. They use RGBW strip centered in a diffuse acrylic tube, secured in place with 3D printed end caps. Every connection needed to be manually soldered and tested. The wall lights use a simpler design: LED strips mounted onto aluminum extrusions.

Most of the components were unavailable locally and had to be sourced from overseas. COVID-19 had resulted in had significantly increased shipping times, so it was crucial to ensure that every item ordered met the exact specs on the first attempt.

For the downstairs lighting, we went with DMX control software. Each pendant and wall light has its own decoder and 4 dedicated channels. Everything is wired back to the laptop running the control software.

The software I chose was Mydmx 3.0, as I had used it on a previous project (Brighton Gym), and was familiar with how to use it. Mydmx 3.0 is more user-friendly than programs such as Onyx or Madrix, but it had all the functionality we needed to get it up and running. It enables the creation different ‘scenes’ which you can switch between, simply by pressing the up and down arrows on the control box. This meant it could be used by anyone.

Installing the lights was a challenge but a lot of fun. The trickiest part was feeding cable through the ceiling above the dancefloor, which was cluttered with debris and structural beams. Thankfully we communicate pretty effectively as a team. It only took a few sessions before we had everything up and running.