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Fred Kavli Theatre

Built in 1994, the 1800-seat Fred Kavli Theatre underwent recent renovations over an expedited three-month period that included new paint, carpet, seats, color-changing fixtures and new lighting design upgrades.

Location

  • California, USA

Project Status

  • Completed

Awards

  • IES Award of Merit

Our lighting design team worked closely with the architect, interior designer, and technical theatre staff to select new fixtures designed to fit into existing fixture housings to minimize work, keep fixtures concealed, and maintain the original design intent. In addition, existing circuits were reused or extended, eliminating the need to open walls or pull new wiring.

Scope included retrofitting incandescent up-lights with intelligent RGBW fixtures, requiring that banks of low voltage transformers replace LED power supplies with data encoders. The functional DMX signal from the lighting controller reaches the encoders and is then transmitted across the existing wires to be decoded at each fixture, allowing for individual fixture control. The house lighting dimmers received a new control processor, extending its operational life. The team installed new relay modules in the rack to power down LED power supplies and data encoders when not in use.

The design team expanded the stage lighting control network to provide new eDMX data to the dimmer rack and LED encoders. A newly installed architectural lighting processor controls new and old house lighting together, incorporating a time clock and overrides to turn off house lights when the auditorium is not in use. Subsequent phases expand the network to include backstage touch screens and networked DMX ports for lighting. New warm white LED sources replaced the incandescent step lights in the auditorium. At orchestra level, poorly illuminated stairs set at odd angles received an illuminated LED stair nosing to help patrons navigate the transitions. Stair tread lighting is powered from adjacent seat lighting for ease of installation.

Additional services provided by WSP included mechanical, electrical, and plumbing to complete the theatre's transformation.

IMAGES COURTESTY OF CHRISTY RADECIC

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