Anolis LED Retrofit Solution Colors NIDA Theater Complex

Leading European LED manufacturer Anolis has engineered and produced a custom lighting solution for a major new installation in the impressive foyer space of The Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) award-winning theater complex in Kensington, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

The new energy-efficient lighting scheme replaced 28 recessed 500W PAR56 halogen fittings with the new Anolis ArcSource 48 MultiChip fixture, specially designed by Anolis for this project.

The Anolis ArcSource 48 MC comprises 12  10W Cree MCE RGBW LED chips, which enable full and seamless RGB color mixing plus a selection of whites in a variety of color temperatures.

NIDA’s lighting supervisor Adrian Wright explains that top of their brief for the new lighting was to make a significant reduction in electricity consumption across NIDA’s public areas. They also wanted to utilize light sources that offered more versatility and dynamics than just a “standard white” lighting scheme.

Practically, the Anolis scheme uses 60% less power compared to the previous installation and further long-term savings will follow due to the reduced ongoing maintenance required for LEDs.

Wright and the senior management team at the complex considered several options and proposals for LED replacements, selecting Anolis for its light quality and the unique bespoke retrofittable design.

The concept for the new ArcSource was designed and developed by Anolis in just 4 weeks, and delivered to NIDA by Anolis’s Australian distributor, the ULA Group.

The building, designed by HASSELL in association with Peter Armstrong Architecture a decade ago, has bold glazed walls and a dramatic sloping canopy; it takes on beacon-like lighting qualities after dark.

There were many challenges involved in lighting the foyer’s interior – the throw distance for the fixtures is over 10 meters, so it was essential that the output was the same as the previous scheme, whilst maintaining low power consumption.

The ArcSource 48 MCs fit into the original PAR 56 housings at NIDA, producing more lux than their predecessors, with convection cooling ensuring silent operation.

Anolis’s optimised light engine produces a fully homogenized light source across the entire color spectrum, without blockiness or pixilation in the source. Says Wright, “I also wanted plenty of headroom on the intensity front, and as a result, our currently programmed lighting states are all around 50 percent.” They are run via an e:cue control system; each unit is individually DMX addressable.

The new lighting has transformed the look and feel of the foyer. With a virtually unlimited color palette, the space can be themed and colored for different events and occasions without needing additional equipment.