Spring brings new lighting for Paris' Montparnasse Tower

Philips has installed a spectacular LED lighting system that will vary with each season of the year in the Montparnasse Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Paris and one of the best viewpoints to contemplate the city.

The first night of spring 2012 marked a new page in the history of the Montparnasse Tower in Paris with the inauguration of the building's new lighting design. Almost 40 years after its construction, leste skyscraper will be illuminated every night from now on, using different lighting scenarios that will change with the seasons. Thanks to this new lighting, the tower becomes a visual landmark of the Parisian night sky.

En nombre de los copropietarios del Tour Maine Montparnasse, el diseñador de iluminación, Régis Clouzet, ha imaginado una iluminación sostenible y evolutiva en colaboración con Philips Lighting. Benjamin Azoulay, consejero delegado de Philips Lighting Francia, commented that “con este diseño de iluminación sutil, desarrollado con nuestro socio Vinci Energies Citéos, Philips aporta una nueva firma al paisaje urbano de la noche de París. Philips fue elegida por su experiencia en la creación de auténticos cuadros luminosos de luz. “Paris, ciudad de la luz, dota a su edificio más alto con una solución de iluminación innovadora y sostenible”, ha añadido Benjamin Azoulay.

El objetivo del proyecto es doble: crear un ambiente agradable para los residentes y aumentar el prestigio del edificio haciéndolo visible desde la distancia:

• Una visión de proximidad: la solución implementada se compone exclusivamente de la solución iColor Accent de Philips. Las aplicaciones se han instalado en el interior del edificio. Para evitar molestias a los ocupantes, se han integrado en una caja de estética visual. During the day, las luminarias no son visibles desde el interior ni desde el exterior.

• Una visión desde lejos: 58 proyectores iColor Reach se han instalado en la última planta del edificio. La nueva iluminación es, well, visible en toda la ciudad, para sus 12 million inhabitants. Los resultados van más allá de los objetivos fijados por Régis Clouzet, since the silhouette of the tower is visible from more than 8 km. away.

Lighting for every season

This new lighting design will evolve with the hours, days and seasons. The scenography is part of a temporal rhythm: Régis Clouzet has imagined 4 light scenarios, one per season of the year, based on different lighting effects, multiple scattering rhythms and a wide color gamut. From the neighborhood, the luminous silhouette will gradually reveal the angles of the tower, and from a distance, the top of the building will appear at the end of a slow luminous pulse…

A fifth stage of light, called “festive”, le dará ritmo a los diferentes eventos parisinos que se celebran en la Torre: the White Night (La Nuit Blanche), the Music Festival (La Fete de la Musique), in which artists will be able to use this light device, symbol of modernity, creativity and movement, to renew the lighting of the tower depending on the occasion.

Sustainable lighting

The Montparnasse Tower, that continues its commitment to the environment, made the decision to limit electricity consumption by using light-emitting diodes (LED) new generation of. To improve this effort, the Montparnasse Tower has opted for an alignment of the lighting installation during the time slots where energy use is at its lowest level, with the possibility to deactivate the installation at any time. The implemented solution also presents a luminosity that is 3 times lower than the original lighting solution, reducing light pollution.

Like this, the energy consumption of this new lighting is reduced by more than one 90% compared to the previous installation, when moving from 272 kWh less than 25 Kwh. The energy used for the 56 floors of this tower which is from 210 meters high is the equivalent of the energy used by 10 Plates. The cost of maintaining the tower is almost zero: LED technology minimizes bulb changes, since the products used have a shelf life of 50.000 hours.

Digitally controlled interconnected LED

The installed lighting structure consists of 972 Philips dynamic LED slats and 58 LED lights on all floors, with assured visibility from a distance. Each ribbon is composed of 40 light pixels. Each of the scenarios is a harmonious arbitration of the current ones 40.000 Pixels. The chosen lighting technology allows the light to work point by point, “to the pixel”, as in videos. Each pixel “rgb” is one of the three primary colors of light (red, green, blue), and their association therefore provides an infinite palette of shades from white to frank colors.

To coordinate each scenario, very powerful computer tools have been used. A fiber optic Ethernet network has been deployed along the tower to interact on each pixel instantly and at the same time. Un sistema de control conectado a una red de muy alta velocidad (Gigabit / s) permite la coordinación con un administrador del sistema de vídeo. Este último permite el mapeo de la instalación y el uso de un único servidor de medios con una entrada DVI (Media Server proporcionado por Axente, un socio de Philips). La instalación de la red Ethernet ha sido diseñada para soportar nuevas extensiones, la iluminación de la torre y su control se abren en el futuro a los nuevos desarrollos que podrán ser fácilmente implementados.

Cifras:

-972 listones de LED dinámicos y 58 LED projectors
-Cada LED tiene una duración de 50.000 hours, I mean, 15 años de uso
-Un luminancia 3 veces menor que la solución inicial
-Una escenografía lumínica compuesta por 40.000 píxeles conectados
-The energy used for the 56 pisos de esta torre de 210 metros de altura es la equivalente a la de 10 Plates
-Consumo extremadamente bajo: less than 25 Kwh, I mean, the 0,3% del consumo de la iluminación de las oficinas de la Torre Montparnasse y el 0,2% de la potencia global de la torre.

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