Aquaram Shades Soothe Istanbul Bank HQ

Stockholm-based Spectra Stage and Event Technologies, Wybron's dealer in Sweden, has installed 28 Aquaram color changers on the 400-foot-tall GarantiBank headquarters in Istanbul.

Lighting Designer Per Sundin wanted the façade of the building to stand out, but he had to keep Mother Nature in mind. So the Spectra team fit Wybron's 18-inch-wide Aquarams &ndash a weather-resistant version of the company's trusted Coloram color changer – onto Philips ArenaVision MVF 403 1800W HID floodlighting luminaires to drench the front stone walls of the bank in beautiful shades of blue and aqua.

While it delivers precise gel colors, the Aquarams also stands up to harsh conditions. Rubber seals along the Aquaram’s glass and plexiglass panels keep moisture out, and filters on the vents remove harmful particles from the air before it circulates inside the unit. A silicone spray applied to the circuit board protects delicate electronics.

Additional Philips fixtures with a blue dichroic filter focus on the center concrete walls. "I wanted a serene feel to the front," Sundin explained. "While the center remains a static blue, I wanted the stone walls on either side to continuously transition through very specific blue and aqua tones, almost as if emulating the ocean."

The entire system, including the Aquaram color sequence, was pre-programmed on computers and loaded onto 5 LanBox-LCE mini DMX controllers, which are integrated with the master operating system for the entire bank building. The bank system now operates everything from the lighting to the air conditioning and elevators.

The project proved challenging because the bank, constructed five years ago, wasn't built with exterior lighting in mind. So Spectra oversaw the construction of 28 custom brackets for the Aquaram/ArenaVision fixtures to mount five feet out from the face of the building and allow for a six-foot tilt.

Spectra Production Manager Ola Melzig explained: "This was a very exciting and challenging project since neither me nor Per typically do lighting for buildings. We learned a lot during this rollercoaster. It was fun to work with products designed specifically for the outdoors, and the effect is fantastic."