Beijing towers attract new attention
LG Towers opened in December 2005 as a prominent new landmark in the bustling Chaoyang district of Beijing. Owned by world-renown Korean conglomerate LG, the construction makes use of cutting-edge materials and technologies, including intelligent LED lighting by Color Kinetics.
The twin towers stand 140 m (460 ft) high and comprise 31 stories of office space, retail shops, restaurants and more. To complement the towers’ contemporary architectural design and further distinguish their grand presence, the design team specified approximately 2,237 m (7,340 ft) of Color Kinetics’ iColor Accent system to vertically line the exterior glass façade. In addition, 366 m (1,200 ft) of iColor Cove LT (now specified with PureStyle Compact Powercore, IntelliHue) was mounted horizontally within the glass panels on the facade of the mall that connects the two towers. In addition to its aesthetic benefits, the low-heat, low-maintenance nature of iColor Cove NXT is ideal for lighting this difficult-to-access space in the ceiling.
iColor Accent is a direct-view linear light that, unlike fragile, high-voltage neon, offers a rugged, low-maintenance option for seamless runs of color and dynamic effects in architectural highlighting. The units were easily installed end-to-end with adjustable mounting brackets to allow for uninterrupted columns of light. Each length of iColor Accent was programmed in 30. 5 cm (1 ft) increments, which allowed the design team to conceptualize a wide range of light shows that represent scenes from nature, such as sunset and falling snow.
The ideal control solution proved to be Light System Manager (now specified with iPlayer 4) Color Kinetics Ethernet-based software/hardware solution that facilitates the authoring, management and control of complex and large-scale light shows. Light System Composer software provided a simple graphical user interface to minimize the time and guesswork involved in designing for such an elaborate installation including the ability to easily discover and address the many thousands of lights in the network. The light shows were then exported and stored on Light System Engine, the Ethernet-based hardware controller.
With $160 billion in new construction now underway in Beijing*, the majestic twin towers are certain to hold an iconic place against the evolving skyline.
*Bloomberg, January 2006
