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Mark Herring Wins Award For Oamaru Opera House

Being built in 1907, this gracious Edwardian Baroque building was designed by notable Oamaru architect John Forrester.  Recently being completely restored to its original glory, Mark Herring Lighting was approached to provide an architectural lighting solution for the building that would reflect its grandeur and heritage, without polluting the daytime image of the building and working within the constraints of the Historic Building requirements.

The integration of classic architecture with modern lighting was achieved through the innovative use of Colour Kinetics dynamic colour LED’s, a solution that won a commendation at the recent Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) Lighting Awards. With the input of Modus designer, Chris Bryne, various plans were considered, but working with coloured light is architecturally demanding, so real trials were required to understand and validate the effects. After several evening trials, creating surmountable local interest and snapshot opportunities, the best solution found was to mount the lighting within the casement windows, with fittings mounted on the window sill, and additional fittings being added to backlight the crowning balustrade.

The DMX lighting control system, powered by a Colour Kinetics iPlayer 3 allows a flexible and unlimited colour scheme and variation that can be customised to the client’s requirement. MHL’s sustainable solution lights the entire building for 1kw with virtually no maintenance, creating additional attention to the historic white stone building, which is now fast becoming a lighting icon and tourist attraction in the region.