CHICAGO – Lightswitch Architectural provided the lighting design for the Adler Planetarium’s theatre experience, Deep Space Adventure. The exhibit is designed to simulate the observation deck of a starship. Lightswitch’s design helps take visitors from the fully-lit world to the immersive environment leading to the Grainger Sky Theater.
More details from Lightswitch Design (http://architecture.lightswitch.net):
Lightswitch Design Launches Chicago’s Adler Planetarium’s Deep Space Adventure
CHICAGO – The premiere of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium’s immersive, technology-driven theatre experience, Deep Space Adventure, brings scientific simulation into orbit with digital and light imagery, resulting in the ultimate journey into deep space.
Lightswitch designed lighting for the dome and floor in the Grainger Sky Theater as well as the Clark Family Welcome Gallery, where lighting transitions guests subtly from bright light to the darker Sky Theater. This allows for optimal deep space viewing.
Deep Space Adventure in the Grainger Sky Theater was designed like the observation deck of a starship. Images created by super computers and observations from the most advanced telescopes available display planets, stars, galaxies and more in a 360-degree format using a range of emulation so great that images from any time, place or distance in the Universe are possible. Curious explorers enter in between light-shifting, interactive walls of the Clark Family Welcome Gallery.
The Clark Family Welcome Gallery and the dome and floor in the Grainger Sky Theater were optimized by fixture and control choices to allow lighting flexibility while providing essential program support. The 125 LED lights of the Gallery can produce 16 million different colors in two billion combinations; they backlight 20,000 square yards of spandex-type fabric to create a panorama that supports an interactive multimedia environment.
The Theater, which can display a large, seamless digital images, has a floor embedded with 400 individually controlled and programmable LEDs. In addition to completing 360-degrees of projection capability, the floor also provides a fully customizable component for special events using a floor-mounted truss system that can be modified in any way.
