Lighting Design Firm Wins Award for Innovative Theater Illumination

GE Lighting, East Cleveland, OH
Schuler Shook Inc., Chicago, IL

During this year’s Lightfair International in Las Vegas, Nevada, GE Lighting announced the winner of its 31st annual international GE Edison Award. This award recognizes excellence and quality in professional lighting designs that employ significant use of GE Lighting Products, including, but not limited to, GE LED systems, LED luminaires, LED architectural products, LED lamps and modules, lighting controls and non-LED lamps and luminaires.

Taking home the personalized Steuben crystal trophy this year is the Chicago, IL-based lighting design firm of Schuler Shook for their work on City Performance Hall in Dallas, Texas. City Performance Hall, which is billed as “a building of the community for the community,” has become a showcase for Dallas' mid-sized arts companies. It’s designed to glow from within and provide an inspiring entry to the renowned Dallas Arts District. Designed before LEDs became truly viable as general lighting solutions, the project features GE 39-watt ConstantColor^® CMH^® lamps for interior downlights and wallwash fixtures in the lobby and exterior soffit.

The multi-level main lobby is positioned tightly to the public sidewalk. Through the transparent curtain wall façade, the lobby's side walls, ceiling and lighting sweep away the boundary between interior and exterior. The rear wall is illuminated by a combination of border striplights and recessed lensed wallwashers with 39-watt CMH^® PAR30 narrow flood lamps. Ceiling fixtures are strategically zoned by row and function to provide greater flexibility for control despite having a nondimmable source. Throughout the multi-level lobby, coves lit with GE 54-watt T5 3000 K fluorescent lamps are integrated into lower ceilings to provide an indirect source of lighting. A similar detail using the same lamps in dimmable fixtures is repeated under the balcony in the performance space.

In the 750-seat proscenium theater, general lighting is provided by dimmable GE 500-watt halogen downlights, accessible from the catwalks above. Several LED color-changing features allow user groups to dramatically change the dynamic of the space, including RGB floodlights that light the concrete ceiling above the floating wood panel reflectors. The balcony floats away from the board-formed concrete walls, providing a location to conceal up and down border striplights lamped with GE 50-watt halogen HIRTM narrow flood lamps that graze the highly textured surfaces. In lieu of a traditional fabric stage curtain, an LED low-res matrix provides a contemporary canvas for commissioned video art.

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