Awarded: IES Lighting Design Award of Commendation 2015 – Vic/Tas Chapter
In 2013, Stage 2 works by ARM Architecture included a visitors centre, a garden and major conversion of the Undercroft in to a new exhibition space and encourages an extended community engagement with The Shrine with a particular emphasis on education about war. The Shrine Galleries of Remembrance (SGOR) seamlessly integrates the new exhibition, administration and education components with the existing building, creating a coherent and functioning whole.
Electrolight was commissioned to provide specialist lighting design to new areas of the SGOR, including the Exhibition spaces (architectural and display) and Hall of Columns. The lighting approach considered all strategic and technical decisions relating to lighting design within the context of the historic and poetic narrative of The Shrine.
The main exhibition space is an illustration of the experiences of Australians at war and in peacekeeping operations, from pre Federation to the present date. The exhibition displays are a combination of permanent and temporary installations. The lighting has been designed using a combination of flexible track lighting and specialist display lighting customised to suit each exhibit. Light levels provide a sense of discovery and dramatic revelation of each display in isolation.
The primary circulation route through the main exhibition space is clearly expressed through the use of repeated pools of light.
Fundamental to the lighting design in the Hall of Columns was the use of contrast to emphasise the heritage architecture and direct visitors through the exhibition.
The lighting was designed to celebrate the raw materials and construction of the columns. Directional light was used to emphasis the height and texture of the bricks and mortar. Dedicated paths of travel are illuminated through downward grazing column light that spills on to the ground plane.
The upper portion of the double height brick columns are accentuated through strategically placed spot lights. The dedicated exhibition displays below are intentionally left unlit to allow the vitrines to take centre stage and encourage visitor exploration.
Careful consideration and attention to detail was paramount in the designing of the specialist lighting to the displays, heritage architecture and circulation areas to ensure that each element was balanced, with a luminous and fluid movement between the spaces.
