Anolis Chosen for City of Dijon Lighting InstallationOver 200 Anolis Calumma S and XS, as well as Eminere Remote 1, 2, 3, and 4 LED lighting fixtures, were specified for an eye-catching new architectural lighting installation at the Palais des Ducs et des Etats de Bourgogne (town hall) in Dijon, France. The project was titled "Les reflets de l'Or" ("reflections of Gold") and sees the town hall, Philippe le Bon Tower, and the Saint-Michel Church of this outstanding architectural complex highlighted in subtle and elegant light. The project realization was a fine balance of collaborators, including lighting designers Johan Sustrac and Saffran Popille, from Distylight, and Pierre Roussel, from Godart + Roussel Architectes. The installation was completed by electrical engineering specialist DEMONGEOT, project-managed for them by Thomas Marques-Faria; the lighting programmers were Tom Marchandiau and Anthony Sauvet, from APS & CO. The project's history dates to 2017 when the city of Dijon launched a competition to illuminate the Liberte pedestrian shopping street in the historic city center. Paris-based Distylight won, from the artistic and heritage enhancement context, while Dijon-based Godart + Roussel Architectes was the public's favorite. A few years later, the direction gestion connectee de l'espace public -- GCEP -- of Dijon invited tenders for a lighting trail in the city center. Working together, Distylight and Godart + Roussel Architectes proposed an illuminated walk linking five of the city's key architectural landmarks. Sustrac says they advocated for permanent lighting scheme to be available for civic events; however, certain global events overtook the process, resulting in budgetary restrictions, and the scale was revised to initially light three monuments: the Palace of the Dukes and States of Burgundy, including the Philippe le Bon tower, the Saint-Michel church and the Porte Guillaume. Pierre Roussel, a member of the lighting project team, notes that highlighting the Burgundy Stone in warm ochre and gold hues had appealed to Pierre Pribetich, the former Dijon urban planning deputy, who wanted to see classy lighting linked to the local heritage. This was achieved by mixing RGBW colors in warm white at around 2,200K. To evoke the golden reflections, Distylight's Saffran Popille chose a custom color mix. "The shade we needed to make the stone pop out had to work with 2,200K, rather than be an amber LED, so this is linked to the lighting's chromatic spectrum." Sustrac elucidates how they researched and tested several options: "What we really liked about Anolis was the quality of the color mixing, and each time we asked the team from Robe France to add a little green or a touch of pink, they knew exactly how to do it, and obtained exactly the color and detail we needed." (Robe owns Anolis, among other brands.) Once the 97 Anolis Calumma S and XS and 110 Eminere Remote 1, 2, 3, and 4s were selected, they were positioned on and around the three monuments using a variable white mix between 2,200K -- 3,000K plus a custom RGBCW mix created by Anolis specifically for this project. One hundred and thirty Anolis fixtures in total are focused on the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, plus two automatic projectors and four 30,000-lumen video projectors for the three sides of the town hall. Eight gobo projectors are used on the Saint-Michel Church to project occasional images and as kinetic illuminations on the facade. Sustrac observes that the combination of lighting and video projection provided a perfect solution to cover the building elements exactly as they envisioned. Roussel highlights the role of Dijon city's technical services team, headed by Patrick Dubois, who gave much of their time and several weekends to ensure the installation ran smoothly and on time. The city had already purchased a lighting console for the festive lighting for which they needed a specialist programmer, so Anthony Sauvet was sourced for this task thanks to Marchandiau's extensive address book. He explains that the Anolis products were addressed in RDM, mainly using a City Theatrical DMXcat, to rename more than 200 fixtures, enabling remote observation and control as the lighting console is tucked away in a closed room without windows. The three illuminated buildings are connected to the lighting console by two Ethernet/DMX nodes: one for the Palace and the other near the Saint-Michel Church. A fiber optic cable allows the execution of Art-Net control commands quickly, over the approximately 500m distance. The Anolis LED projectors are controlled with four DMX parameters, allowing independent control of the individual red, green, blue, and white pixels for each luminaire. Despite the complexity of the systems implemented, the installation had to remain manageable for all involved, including remotely, so a screen interface was created via a Modulo Pi media server that simplified the system for intuitive day-to-day use by City of Dijon staff and managers. Anolis' Julien Thery also provided comprehensive on-site support throughout the project. The installation is active all year round, running with a signature look devised by Distylight based on the reflections-of-gold concept. The facades will illuminate and come to life between two and four times per hour for five minutes, depending on the season, in a subtle combination of soft video projection, golden waves, and delicate movements programmed into the Anolis fixtures and architectural devices on the facade, flickering with a variation of whites and intensity. The new lighting scheme was inaugurated by the mayor of Dijon, Nathalie Koenders, alongside the first vice-president of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region, Michel Neugnot. Attendees at Showlight 2025, to be held in Dijon May 19 - 22, will have the opportunity to see the illumination for themselves. 
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