048 AUDITORIUM LIGHTING / GUANGZHOU OPERA HOUSE, GUANGZHOU, CHINA Photograph: Courtesy HI-MACS Photograph: Virgile Simon Bertrand
White HI-MACS solid surface material was used for the interior structure of the building as it is reflective. This worked well both for daylighting when no artificial lighting was needed, and in the evening when the light channels were switched on.
Indeed it is a feature of Light & View’s style that they like to conceal fittings preferring to “see the illumination but not the light fittings”.
The interior of Opera House’s main audito- rium space is a champagne-coloured gold space with a gloss finish – similar in appear- ance to luxurious silk. This is continued into the seating which is also copper toned. “As with all our work of the past ten years, we wanted to achieve the ultimate fluid space to deal with the complexities of the demanding acoustic engineering, and also the complicated programming require- ments that allow for a variety of events and performances in the building,” commented Hadid. “Therefore, we have continued the seamless, organic architectural language in the asymmetrical auditorium space.” Lighting the auditorium created a headache for Xiaojie An. A traditional downlight light- ing solution was inadvisable in such a per- fect curved shell and it was impossible to adopt indirect lighting or light slots as they had in the lobby. In the end it was decided to evenly distribute small but dense holes in the top of the curved space. Visually these holes seem like a plane rather than points, just like perforated plates. This solution not only solved the functional lighting problem, but more importantly, the dense light spots arising from the small holes emphasised the curvature of the surface.
The lighting is a constellation of very small white LED downlights, supplied by Philips Lumileds. To gain accurate illumination data, Light & Vision built computational models and carried out many laboratory and field experiments for comparison. “In consideration of the return on invest- ment and maintenance cost in the future, we decided to set 100 lux as the illumina- tion standard,” states Yan. “This is lower than the existing value specified in the national standards, but we believe such lu- minance is sufficient to meet the functional requirements, as the auditorium is used solely for opera performance.” The low light level LED concept met with fierce resistance by the engineers but the lighting team pressed ahead, certain of its success.
“In the end we did have to compromise by increasing the use of halogen spotlights on stage and the amount of downlights underneath the balcony to ensure the standards were satisfied,” concedes Yan. “These newly-introduced light fittings have a certain influence on the overall perfect effect, but they are acceptable as they are only switched on in special cases and are off under most circumstances.”
The lobby is a very complicated space and, as such, was also very difficult to light. It is around 130m long, 28.5m high, 15m wide in the widest area and only 8m wide
in the narrowest. Two layers of the lobby are suspended from the internal walls, the curves of which constitute important visual elements indoors. The internal and external walls tilt backwards (towards the centre of the building) on the top, and intersect into a curve, forming into a curved wedge- shaped space. “We realised that any visible light fittings might damage the aesthetic feeling of this space,” says Yan. “So we decided to adopt indirect lighting exclusively for the lobby. We used indirect lighting systems as the ma- jor lighting solution for the lobby in three ways: to mount floodlights in the wedge- shaped space on the top intersection of the internal and external walls to illuminate the top of external walls; to fix indirect lighting slots along the curve at the bottom of the two-layer vestibules; and to adopt the ex- terior lighting of the triangular curtain wall steel structure.”
The floodlighting at the top of the space illuminates the solid curved surface. Light & View carefully analysed the mounting position of the light fittings and kept them hidden from view, while ensuring uniform illumination over the upper surface. The lighting channels in the lobby’s walls and stair railings are crucial to the space. The slots stretch and harmonise with the profile of the architecture, giving the space a magical atmosphere. These smooth
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