Display & Design Ideas - December 2008 - (Page 24)

24 right light Photos: Jeffrey Jacobs Photography, Memphis, Tenn. Lighting hits the jackpot A dynamic casino environment welcomes patrons with constantly changing color By Vilma Barr, New York Editor ilwaukee’s Potawatomi Bingo-Casino logged 4 million visitors last year—and that number is growing. Founded as a bingo hall less than 10 years ago by the Forest County Potawatomi Community of Wisconsin, it now offers high-stakes bingo, blackjack, craps, roulette, slots, three restaurants and the Northern Lights Theater in a new $240 million, 500,000-sq.-ft addition. The complex’s visual identity is expressed by a dazzling show of lighting technology, inside and out. At Potawatomi, the lighting systems radiate a palpable energy. “It communicates excitement, action and energy to their guests,” says lighting designer Martin Peck of Creative Lighting Design & Engineering, Germantown, Wis. In 2003, Potawatomi management initiated a program to attract more patrons from a 100-mile radius, including the upscale communities in North Chicago. Rob Lee, project director for Memphis, Tenn.-based architects Hnedak Bobo Group (HBG), participated in the early planning discussions. “They felt they could handle 1,500 more slot machines in an expanded facility,” Lee says. “To accommodate this growth would require tripling their existing space.” Barry Marshall, an architect with HBG, says that the market for the casino is predominantly urban. “Our approach was a contemporary design that would attract Potawatomi BingoCasino receives a new $240 million, 500,000-sq.-ft addition. M a younger, urban crowd,” Marshall notes. “We needed to target this market with a quality environment in which they would feel comfortable.” The architects point out that they developed several of the design concepts from tribal icons to create a contemporary design program. One such inspiration was the dream catcher, an American Indian iconic tradition made by tying sinew strands in a web around a round or tearshaped frame. The dream catcher would be hung as a charm to protect sleeping children from bad dreams, which would get caught in the web. “Dream catchers were the starting point for the ceiling design suspended above the gaming floor,” Lee indicates. “It’s meant to encourage visitors to have dreams of hitting the jackpot.” Three main areas at Potawatomi Bingo-Casino express the lighting dynamics that have become its signature: an exterior Welcome Wall; the dream catcher on the gaming floor; and Bar 360’s multi-layered dream catcher feature. A new glass-enclosed pedestrian sky bridge leads visitors into the casino from the main parking area through the Welcome Wall. Measuring 63 ft. high by 123 ft. wide, the three-story-high curtain wall is lit by 632 LED lights, programmed for color and motion, and linked to music. “It can be seen clearly from bordering roadways and surface streets,” Peck says. “It lets patrons know that the energy starts when they park.” The expanse of color is actually a unique combination of direct and reflected light. A 4-ft.-deep cavity of space extends out from the building’s skin to the etched-glass outer wall. Installed at the base of its ledge are 208 50watt ColorBlast fixtures from Color Kinetics that are pinpoint-focused on the white back wall. This light is then reflected onto the back of the glass, which is over the surface of the 4-ft.-by-8-ft. pane, with direct light from two 5-watt MRg2 lamps aimed at each pane. Each fixture is individually programmable with 30 different routines. “Most are abstract colors,” Peck points out. “But we can simulate a thunderstorm, or rainfall, or falling gold coins, and even make them sparkle.” Colored illumination is both decorative and functional, used as a wayfinding device on the ceiling of the 12ft.-high walkway from the parking area to the main building. Extending 90 ft. long and 12 ft. across, the ceiling has a transparent mesh screen that gently undulates between 18 in. and 30 in. This serves to give additional visual quality to the 8-ft.-long color tubes mounted above. Each iColor Accent tube by Color Kinetics can be individually programmed in 1-ft. sections, Peck notes. “The movement and colors are sequenced to match the choreography of the Welcome Wall,” he says. December 2008 www.ddimagazine.com Continued on page 26. http://www.ddimagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Display & Design Ideas - December 2008

Display & Design Ideas - December 2008
From the Editor
Contents
News Watch
DDI’s Leadership Forum 2008
Consumer insights
Editor’s Choice
Snapshots
Alexander McQueen
Eye On: Luxury
Right Light
In-Store Technology
Product Spotlight
New York Report
DDI’s NADI Show Preview
New York Retail
New York Restaurants
Calendar
Advertisers
Classifieds
Shopping with Paco

Display & Design Ideas - December 2008