Raising the bar with dynamic, upbeat lighting
The Thunder Valley Casino Resort, located in Lincoln, California, USA, is a place for relaxation and excitement. After a recent expansion, the resort now includes a spa, a 144,500 square foot casino, nine restaurants, five bars, guest suites, and event rooms.
The expanded resort includes the Mingle Bar, a dynamic casino lounge bar where people come to see and be seen. George Huang, senior designer from shop12, designed the bar to be the heart of the casino—modern, with a classical touch. The bar was meant to be a place where people could congregate and, as the name of the bar suggests, mingle. Because the casino is owned by the United Auburn Indian Community, the management of Thunder Valley wanted to incorporate Native American elements in the bar. Huang chose to include these elements in a very subtle way, and decided to create an "inside-outside" atmosphere for the bar.
Four oversized picture frames anchor each of the four walls. Patrons in the bar can look into the casino, and vice-versa. Orange sheer curtains inside the four frames are uplighted and downlighted by eW Graze Powercore luminaires, and project white light onto the orange curtains to create the effect of rippling flames. iColor MR gen2 luminaires, (now specified as iColor MR gen3), were also mounted to the ceiling. The installation was controlled with a Color Kinetics iPlayer 3 lighting controller.
Once the installation was complete in July 2010, the lights turned out to create just what this bar called for - a dynamic and upbeat atmosphere in which people can mingle.
"The eW Graze Powercore was perfect as it had enough 'punch' to highlight the tall sheers while the tight optics kept the spill light under control, maintained the mood and did not disturb the guests. The ability of the MR gen2 to turn a simple MR16 monorail track light into a dynamic, cost effective, color changing fixture was a big plus," said Huang.
