LED Testing & Application  

Emotional Outbursts

The T Spa at the Tulalip Resort Casino offers a package called “Fire and Water.” The treatments range from a hot stone massage to a “calm, cool solace facial.” As it happens, the spa environment, itself, changes as dramatically as the services offered, all in an effort to put guests in the right frame of mind.
  Mood swings, in fact, are encouraged throughout the hotel, as guests move through the night club, restaurants and banquet space. Indeed, each space is designed to stir an emotional response from patrons, and the lighting scheme is geared to trigger those responses.
  Located on an Indian tribal reservation near Marysville, WA, the Tulalip Casino underwent a major expansion in 2008 that included a new hotel, boutique spa, and various retail and restaurant venues. Seattle- based Interior Design International (IDI) was responsible for the overall design, including specialized lighting—in the form of fiber-optic and LED systems—used throughout the space to create a visual playground for patrons.
   Color-changing and “effects” lighting were a key element of the design. IDI contracted Atkinson Lighting and Controls to manage vendor selection for this aspect of the project. Advanced Lighting, a division of Nexxus Lighting Group, was recommended as the preferred manufacturer of the LED and fiber-optic systems. The project encompassed several areas within the T Spa, the Cedars Café restaurant, the Mpulse lounge and several adjoining banquet rooms.

LIGHT SURROUND
   The design team’s vision was to surround various areas in light to evoke different emotional responses. Lighting can change the mood of a space almost instantaneously, and color-changing LED lighting can imbue an almost surreal experience. Throughout the corridor of the T Spa, for example, two types of LED fixtures were used for uplighting, covering an indoor forest canopy in color. The color-changing track head fixtures use 35 watts and 12 watts, respectively, and come with a remote data interface/power supply combination. With a switching power supply and 50 pre-programmed shows on board, they are DMX compatible and have an inherent 30 deg beam spread.
  The fixtures were placed in strategic positions throughout the spa corridors to create patterns of light on ceilings, and in treatment rooms to create a variety of atmospheres. “Color-changing LEDs are used throughout, giving the feeling that you are enveloped in color,” says IDI principal Shirley LaFollette. “Chromatherapy is a treatment of color and light and how that color affects one’s mood. This feature was an integral part of the spa, developing different levels of relaxation to suit the client’s needs. From deep red to an alluring blue and every other color in between, with each push of a button the whole space changes to stimulate any mood.”
  Controllers (Sunlite DMX from Nicolaudie) were used to change the scenes in the spa and throughout other areas of the resort. The device is hooked to a simple architectural dry closure wall pad. The software allows the user to develop a multitude of scenes by building them step by step. It contains a library of many manufacturers’ fixtures which can be loaded onto the mixing board; colors are set by use of a color manager window. Each small controller (4-in. x 4-in. x 1.5-in) is capable of a single universe of fixture control and will hold up to 100 scenes. Scenes are easily edited and can be e-mailed back and forth as simple attachments, allowing for two users to modify programs over the phone while seeing them in real time. Only two days were needed to preprogram the 37 separate controllers used in the expansion.

CACOPHONY AND CALM
   The Mpulse lounge also relied on LED lighting, but for a much different effect; within this space, the atmosphere is far livelier. (The nightclub trumpets its fusion of “tech and glam,” “pulse-pounding” music and “liquid lava” panels that swirl and change “with each step.”) All LED fixtures were linked to a master controller via DMX, so, for example, if the lighting in the back bar changes, so does the uplighting within the booths. Whether set stagnant or on a rotation, the colors are always in sync to achieve a variety of looks, either contrasting or uniform.
  The mood shifts yet again in the Cedars Café. The resort’s casual eatery includes an indoor patio that is open to the corridor between the casino and the hotel but buffered by a large curved planter that houses faux reeds, illuminated by LED uplights. Adding to the outdoor feel of the space are fiber optics used to create a “star ceiling.” The fiber-optic cable system was placed in recessed ceiling ovals in the patio area, above some of the color-changing LED systems. The LED luminaires placed within the faux reeds cast dynamic patterns onto the ceiling substrate, conjuring up images of a night sky complete with aurora borealis.
  Fiber optics were also used to edge light bar shelving and signage throughout the complex.
  Three large ballrooms measuring 50 ft x 100 ft each open up to one another, creating a 150 ft x 100 ft space. LEDs are used in the ceiling coves and within the decorative pilasters to help unify the spaces. The yoke-mount, track-style LED fixtures can swivel 180 deg and provide high lumen output. These units were mounted over frieze-style artwork plaques around the large rooms to scrape colored light along the faces. This creates patterns of light and dark contrasts to highlight the artwork.
  A fitting contrast in a facility full of them.

June 09