In 2002 the old Market Hall in Uppsala, Sweden was severely damaged in a fire–only two brick walls survived. After two years of reconstruction, the Hall has been restored as a daily food market featuring several top quality restaurants.
From the earliest planning stages, Svenssons Krogar–the owner of the restaurants–decided to use choice materials and furniture designs for the restoration, with each restaurant presenting its own specific style. Gothenburg-based Diroco Sound and Light came into the planning process quite early and therefore had the opportunity to influence the lighting with a well thought-out scheme. Diroco set out to integrate Martin intelligent luminaires along with conventional lighting to create the exact environment the Krogar wanted.
The Customer’s Always Right: Flexible Lighting
Since the building was not yet complete when Diroco was contracted, they depended upon lighting design software package Martin Martin ShowDesigner to create scale models for the truss construction as well as light calculations. The ShowDesigner helped convinced the client that the new look would be visually striking.
In one of the restaurants, Åbar, the original curved brick walls are the architectural focus of the room. Therefore, Diroco incorporated surface mounted Alien 05 Stem Mount color changers working together with a small pattern projector. The slow, warm color changes from the Aliens work with the design projections to create an appealing and stimulating environment of changing atmospheres.
The largest of Market Hall's restaurants is a multi-purpose space (featuring brunch, lunch, dinner, a bar and a nightclub). Therefore, it was important for the lighting to set the various moods, thereby defining the various activities. Due to a high, open ceiling, the lighting fixtures were positioned in a large truss, which also fit in well with the room's industrial interior. Stylish Alien 02 full spectrum color changers illuminate the ceiling in warm colors by day, with more daring combinations from Martin MAC 250 Kryptons, Wizard effect lights, and Atomic strobes taking over for the evening nightclub.
It was important to keep white light over the tables so that faces and food look their natural best, another important achievement by Diroco was convincing Krogar of intelligent lighting's flexibility, i.e. automated lighting doesn't necessarily equal disco looks but can provide a flexible environment.
Flexible Control
In order to integrate conventional fixtures with the Martin lights, Diroco chose to work with a dimmer system that reads and controls DMX with regular wall panels so the staff can easily control the intensity of both the conventional and Martin lights. At night however the DJ switches to DJ-mode, enabling the Martin Xciter to control the Martin lights, although staff can still control the conventional lighting. This made it possible to easily switch from daylight to evening light to disco light. All four restaurants operate via the same dimmer and can be easily controlled by small, legible controllers on the wall. Additionally, because of the previous fire, the dimmer system is connected to the fire alarm and in case of an emergency all Martin lights go to white.
The well-planned lighting scheme and elegant furniture has become a functional and often praised complementary duo. Diroco’s Marcus Persson and Lina Denne designed the lighting, with Persson also handling the technical design and programming. Installation was also by Diroco.