IBM E-Business Innovation Centre

Critically acclaimed architectural firm Gensler, lighting architects Speirs and Major, and Martin Professional have teamed up to create a series of unique lighting environments at IBM´s e-business marketing suite and design studio located on the South Bank of London´s River Thames.

Completed in October of 2000 with the express goal of surprising customers and opening them up to the possibilities that the web and e-business can offer, the innovative studio incorporates a host of Martin intelligent lighting equipment.

Lighting Architects Group Studio: Speirs and Major explain the concept behind the centre. “We resolved to simulate within the space every type of natural sun, moonlight and weather effect. This could help evoke emotional responses to the team’s creative scenarios. An important factor was that each client was never to see the space the same way twice. A basic level of 30 pre-sets and animations ensures that this shouldn’t happen.”

Virtual rooms are created within the centre through the use of intelligent lighting. Martin MiniMAC profile spotlights, RoboColor Pro 400 color changers, illuminators for fibre optic and a 3D tracking system for automated followspot lights (Martin Lighting Director) have been used to achieve the various atmospheres.

The lighting system, for example, can track the position of a customer and alter the lighting environment according to pre-sets. In the Think Tank, used for quick brain storming sessions, space and light is used in a highly thematic manner to stimulate clients’ thinking processes.

Speirs and Major comment on some of the other unique environments. “Behind the glazed meeting rooms a standard cinema space becomes a new experience. This matt black box is light proof with 1,400 fibre optic endpoints fixed in a grid in all four walls, ceiling, floor and even the door. These are zoned between 12 projectors to allow for smooth colour change fading in bands radiating out from the projection screen and other more random animations. Beyond the hi-tech demonstration area an office studio environment has been lit to enable individual workstation emphasis as well as subtle colour rendering changes from daytime to evening. The combined up / down lights create suitably even illumination with a balance of light reflecting from the ceiling plane.”