Published on: July 19, 2009

As part of our series of inspiring projects that were completed more than 2 years ago we publish Lighting Design for Aspire Tower in Doha, Qatar which was completed by Kevan Shaw Lighting Design in 2006.

The tower was inaugorated for the opening of Asian games, 2005. Lighting consists of colour changing LEDs that can be dynamically adressed to achieve various patterns across the surface of the tower.

Here is more information by KSLD:

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The luminaries were designed in conjunction with Solar GB to provide high visible brightness through the principal viewing area below the horizontal with upward light spill minimised to reduce light pollution. Each unit uses six 1 watt Luxeon chips that are driven normally at 350mA but also have the ability to pulse at a higher output to create the strobe sparkle effect required by KSLD.

The entire system is controlled by Artistic License’s Colour Tramp software with an extensive Art-Net DMX over Ethernet network that uses high bandwidth fibre optic cables for vertical distribution on the tower.

The installation of the system was closely coordinated with the construction by Bassam Al Awar, the JV’s MEP project manager. Many time-saving techniques were used to meet programme. These included installing the LED units and wiring on the cladding frames whilst they were on the ground and then connecting them to the cable network as the cladding frames were put in place on the façade. The façade lighting system uses 200 kilometres of cable to connect the 4000 LED fittings to the 405 power supplies and has taken over 19,000 man hours to install.

The initial graphics for the tower were designed and programmed by KSLD. Additional graphics were created for the opening ceremony of the Asian Games: these were designed by Andrew Doig, the Lighting Designer for the entire opening and closing ceremonies.

Kevan Shaw says: “ This project has challenged everyone involved to produce an inspiring building against an incredibly tight and unchangeable deadline. This has been achieved by a dedicated team willing to meet these challenges by creative solution of the inevitable diffi culties in such a large construction project. From my point of view the lighting does not only illuminate the architecture but creates a variable and dynamic form for the building that will allow it to respond uniquely to the many different events that will happen in Sports City”