Beverly Center selects ETC to control luxurious new lighting

The Beverly Center shopping destination in Los Angeles recently received a $500 million renovation, transforming the property with a glamorous new look. The new design floods the building with daylight, centers the shopping area around a new gathering space with a 20-foot-wide and 35-foot-tall video wall, and wraps the exterior of the building with an undulating metal mesh facade that allows light into the structure and acts as a brilliant backdrop for color-changing LED fixtures. The Beverly Center selected ETC to control the intricate lighting design built around these new features.  

Light Portals

Architect firm Studio Fuksas created a 25,000-square-foot skylight in the Center, letting the California sun shine into the space. To get that daylight throughout the space the architects created new floor openings. Lighting design firm Speirs and Major embedded banks of white fixtures at the edges of the portals and throughout the building to complement the natural light and draw the feeling of daylight deeper into the space where natural light wasn’t as strong. Swanson Rink rounded out the team as engineering consultant on the job, crafting the control system to implement the design.    

“They had a lot of daylight integration and they wanted the intensity of the artificial light to change and match it throughout the day,” said Shane Lacey, of GLS Lighting and Controls, manufacturer’s representative and an integral member of the design process. “Originally, the lighting surrounding these portals used DALI fixtures and control. Some of the selected DALI fixtures were not available with a UL listing so the fixtures were supplied with DMX drivers.” Fortunately, ETC’s Mosaic control system is able to accommodate DALI and DMX-controlled lighting in the same control system.

Mosaic Remote DALI Modules offer fixture-level DALI control, giving the designers the more control than just zones, letting each fixture performed as the look required. With the Mosaic system in place, all of the lights created a natural, effortless look, offering a stylish backdrop for storefronts.

Video Integration

The large LED screen in the Beverly Center’s Grand Court gathering space displays the first-ever solo, permanent L.A. installation of well-known media artist Refik Anadolwhich. His piece is echoed and expanded by an array of color-changing fixtures embedded in the walls and ceiling near the screen. There is a high-density of RGB LED fixtures near the video, with fewer and fewer fixtures as you move away from the screen. The fixtures mimic the color of select pixels in the video wall, creating the impression that the video content is expanding beyond the video wall and fading into the rest of the building. It’s an impressive effect, and it wouldn’t have been possible without ETC’s expertise.

The lights were designed to be on two rings of DALI control, but DALI’s limitations around color-changing and individual fixture control posed a problem. Once again, the engineers turned to Mosaic Remote DALI Modules to give designers individual fixture control with DMX capabilities for color, intensity, and other factors. Also important was Mosaic’s ability to take input from the video installation. A Mosaic Show Controller X (MSCX)takes two feeds from the video wall and translates it into DMX commands for the color-changing fixtures. This ability to simultaneously work with different inputs and outputs into a number of systems is a strength of Mosaic, and a hallmark of ETC’s dedication to making designs work.

Color Curtain

The Beverly Center’s exterior was clad in an undulating metal mesh, designed to let natural light into the complex, but also serve as a backdrop for its own lighting display — the mesh is lit with hundreds of color-changing fixtures.

“While the default look is a clean, crisp white, there are hundreds of color-changing RGB fixtures that illuminate it, making colorful looks possible,” says Lacey. A single MSCX is more than enough to handle even the hundreds of exterior fixtures, set colorful looks for special occasions, and even send sweeping color chases across the exterior. Programming the special looks was easy thanks to Mosaic Designer Software, which allows for timeline-based content creation.

And while Mosaic handles specialty lighting throughout the venue, ETC’s Paradigm system runs most of the basic lighting for the building and ties all the systems together. Back of house corridors, break rooms, and rest rooms are on a schedule handled by Paradigm. Each of the tenant spaces can easily tie in to the Paradigm system if they like, but it was not mandatory. “We didn’t specify they had to be connected to the building, but with the capabilities of the Paradigm system, they could seamlessly be connected in the future,” says Lacey. “If a tenant moves out, the facility can connect the space and have a great control system for the next tenant.”

The stunning new Beverly Center was a hit when it debuted in the fall of 2018, quickly becoming an Instagram favorite. And even though influencers may not know it, they have ETC to thank for all the amazing looks they capture.

“Due to the ability to have Mosaic and Paradigm exist simultaneously and harmoniously was a fantastic advantage on job. We were able to combine best of both systems,” finishes Lacey. “We’re combining DMX, DALI, and 0-10V in one system and the end-user has no idea in their day-to-day use of it all. I don’t know another brand of lighting control that allows this variety of lighting control techniques.”