As the City of Casey’s vibrant new entertainment precinct, Bunjil Place is the first facility of its kind to bring together creativity, entertainment and community in a way that is unparalleled in Australia. Bunjil Place was no small undertaking by builder Multiplex, housing an 880 seat regional theatre, exhibition and function studios, regional art gallery, community library and plaza, civic centre, council offices and an underground car park. Lightmoves partnered with electrical contractor Anova to provide a multitude of technical marvels in the building, including a wide range of lighting & audio equipment, technical infrastructure, complete building lighting control, exterior feature lighting, and much more.
Since opening in late 2017, the precinct has welcomed more than 4.1 million visitors. Bunjil Place has also won several awards including Architecture of the Year—International Design Awards 2017, William Wardell Award for Public Architecture—2018 Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter), International Architecture Award (Community Centres)—International Architecture Awards 2019.
Lighting Control
As a state-of-the-art building, Bunjil Place needed the best-of-the-best for its lighting control. Controlling the entire building is the Philips Dynalite system, utilizing a range of Antumbra user interfaces and Dynalite touch screens. The Dynalite system was the perfect choice for the building as it’s incredibly flexible and robust, yet almost infinitely scale-able.
Bunjil Place is surrounded by a wide range of different lighting fixtures. These fixtures, for both general illumination as well as decorative facade lighting, can be easily controlled by the Dyanlite system. In just one application the external lights are programmed to turn on based on both natural light levels, as well as astronomical time clocks.
In addition to the external lighting control, almost every room inside the building has sophisticated lighting control via the same Dynalite system. Hundreds of sensors inside the building assist in the control of the internal lights, giving light where its needed whist ensuring maximum energy efficiency. The foyer spaces have also been programmed with intelligent lighting scenes. The foyer displays a variety of different lighting states throughout each day, giving it a ‘living’ personality.
It’s no surprise that the theatre is where some of the most spectacular control has been implemented. Whilst being integrated with the rest of the Dynalite system, the house lights in both the theatre and the studio are able to be temporarily removed from the system, allowing integration with theatrical systems for control by touring shows. Once the show is over, the Dynalite system automatically regains control of the system to ensure the safety of all guests. These small aspects may seem inconsequential to other control systems, however it’s these extra details that Lightmoves integrates which makes a world of difference.
Theatre Technologies
Theatre is at the heart of Lightmoves, as it’s where we started as a company (as well as many of our team!). With our vast experience we were able to supply the best range of audio equipment for the application.
The audio consoles for both the theatre and studio space were supplied and installed by Lightmoves. Further, state-of-the-art Yamaha audio consoles were installed and configured by the Lightmoves team to give the best sound possible. And to top it off Lightmoves also supplied speaker arrays and speaker systems that are installed in the theatre, studio, and function spaces. These speaker systems have been perfectly calibrated to each room. Even the theatre space, where the main audio arrays can be configured to operate in two different locations, has been precisely tuned for both setups for ease-of-use for years to come.
Supporting the audio (and lighting) systems are countless rack-mounted patch points, wall boxes, circuit tube, and patch bays that are designed, produced, & provided by Lightmoves. To complement the theatrical lighting supplied by Jands, Lightmoves also supplied and installed well over 400 dimmer channels and associated hardware across both the theatre and studio spaces.
Feature Lighting
No building is complete without decorative fixtures, and Bunjil Place definitely delivered. Two Martin gobo projectors were used at the entrance of the building, providing a variety of patterns and colours to decorate the forecourt. Simple integration with the Dynalite system allows the staff to select the colour and pattern with just the press of a button. To finish off the exterior lighting, IP-rated colour-changing LED lights were used in the exterior water feature.
Back inside the theatre, Selecon PL Fresnels were supplied as the house lighting in the theatre, as well as various LED downlights surrounding the theatre space. The Selecon PL Fresnels have been calibrated to 3700K as standard, however once integrated with an external lighting desk can use the full range of RGBW colours to wash the audience in saturated colours.
With so many integrated technology systems on such a large scale, Bunjil Place was suited perfectly to Lightmoves. Our knowledge, experience, and reach allow us to tackle enormous projects with ease. See what other projects we’re working on, and get in touch to find out how we can illuminate your ideas.
