More details from Stage Electrics (http://www.stage-electrics.co.uk):
LONDON – The new Canada Water Library in London’s southeast Docklands is a striking building, with artistic ambitions that take it way beyond the standard repository of books, CDs and IT services.
Stage Electrics was brought in by the electrical contractor, Inviron, who in turn worked for the main contractor, ISG Jackson, to create a flexible ground floor performance studio space, capable of hosting anything from art exhibitions through to music concerts. Added to that, the massive dock doors, which open out on to a courtyard, act as a proscenium for an audience sitting outside, with the studio forming the stage.
Built from the edge of the former Canada Dock, Southwark Council’s £14m investment is an integral part of the local community and popular with commuters who flock to the cafe. Its live arts performance operations are run by a team from the nearby Albany Theatre in Deptford.
The building’s design that sees its four floors tapering upward in an inverted pyramid, with the cultural space at ground level, presented some unusual challenges in designing containment, facilities panels and drapery. ?
Darren Beckley, Stage Electrics Divisional Sales Manager – Installation Projects, commented, “As not one of the walls is square we created a unique fan style lighting grid.”
The space is well enough equipped to host a professional touring company yet is still operable by people of at all levels of technical experience from trainee upward.
Stage Electrics supplied lighting, audio, video infrastructure, mains power distribution infrastructure and communications systems under Technical Project Manager Andy Hewlett. Both the technical and physical infrastructure were designed to provide maximum flexibility: power, audio and DMX can be routed to virtually anywhere in the venue, with a studio-wide CAT5e data network carrying DMX, ArtNet and other data as required, with video data distribution allowing a projector to be added in future.
To make this as user-friendly as possible, Stage Electrics designed and fabricated in-house a large lighting patchbay where the dimming terminates. The center of this 1.2 m sq patchbay cover displays an engraved map of the lighting grid and surrounding facility panels, and in the corresponding positions around it are the actual PowerCon outlets that connect to the various positions around the venue. Further equipment includes two Martin Atomic 3000 DMX strobes and Zero 88 Chilli dimmers.
For the lighting grid, Stage Electrics chose the Qmaxz QS250W 250W wash lights, along with ETC Source Fours, Selecon Rama and Acclaim fresnels and Hui Cyc Floods, and 22 Encore PAR 64s. An Avolites Pearl Tiger desk is in control with Zero 88 Chilli dimming.
