State-of-the-art video games, an Internet lounge, and pulsating dance floor combine to create a hip vibe at Crush, a new teen club at Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Architect Jeffrey Beers designed this $11 million experience for teenagers 13 to 17, with Kelly Hannon of Focus Lighting serving as the primary lighting designer. Crush opened on December 31, 2010 with a New Year’s Eve splash.
“The client’s goal was to create an environment on par with world class nightclub venues to give teenagers a unique experience unrivalled by other teen clubs. Atlantis had an existing teen club but wanted a new one that didn’t dumb down the club experience for teens,” says Hannon. Three distinct areas of the club appeal to popular teen activities: gaming, dancing, and surfing the web. The entry experience has a bold red and orange palette that sets the tone for the design scheme throughout. For the entry columns, Philips Color Kinetics iColor Cove MX LEDs running a bounce/chase pattern in a gamut of colors from red to deep orange and amber are installed behind a plastic surface with patterns for depth and texture.
Once inside the club, a long mirrored hallway glows with diagonal lines of color-changing Traxon LED Media Tubes that create an infinity effect. “The tubes are inset so that just the lens of the fixture shows, not the entire body,” notes Hannon. “These are programmed in blue and orange, with a bold, graphic look to appeal to teens and draw them into the space.”
The Internet lounge has both HP Touch Smartscreens and Microsoft surface tables, allowing teens to connect to the web, upload photos to Facebook, and even order from the club’s cafe. “The lounge has three swooping walls of melamine that curve up to become the ceiling and are lit with TPR’s Deon LEDs from the side and inset in the panels for a beautiful glow,” Hannon explains.
The lounge opens into the gaming stadium, which features a central 22'-tall “tree” that stretches from the floor to ceiling and comprises 32 Samsung video monitors of various sizes. “The tree is made from acrylic rods with Philips Color Kinetics iColor Flex LMX nodes to provide the color effects,” says Hannon, who points out that the top monitors on the tree are reserved for music videos. Belfer two-head and three-head recessed fixtures provide overhead ambient lighting.
Gaming cabanas, with Kinect for Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation, along the side of the room are lit with Boca Flasher white LED strips that have Rosco gel sleeves over the fixtures to add colors. “We had to meet certain budgetary concerns,” Hannon points out, thus the use of Rosco gels to provide static colors to match the wall patterns rather than color-changing LEDs here. Each cabana, or gaming den, has its own color: Red Den, R4660; Amber Den, R4890; Purple Den, R4960; Blue Den, R4290; Green Den, R73.
The third area of Crush is a 1,500sq-ft. dance club with multipurpose video walls and a performance stage. “The inspiration for the club entry design is an inside-out exploded disco ball,” Hannon notes. Embedded in the floor of the entry area to the dance club are 89 Pulsar Chroma InGround MR16 LED fixtures. “These are activated as people walk through the space,” says Hannon, who adds that the floor echoes the floor designed by Focus Lighting principal Paul Gregory in his disco days for the film, Saturday Night Fever.
“The teens themselves are lit up as they walk through the room, and their reflections are seen on the walls of beveled mirrored tiles,” says Hannon. Around the entry are corrugated plastic walls embedded with SLV Lighting crystal sconces with 10W bi-pin lamps to add extra glow and sparkle.
“Inside the club, we collaborated closely with Beers’ team to create a space that unifies architecture, lighting, and sound,” states Hannon. On the dance floor itself, walls referred to as a “rib cage” comprise Traxon Media Tubes placed 6" on center at the bottom, 7" on center in the middle, and 8" on center at the top (widening spaces also due to budget constraints). Images fed to the tubes were created from stock footage—modified by Joshua Spitzig of Focus Lighting—that came with the coolux Pandoras Box media players used to power the walls. “There are a lot of abstract patterns, bold graphic shapes, and sparkle effects,” notes Hannon. There is also a graphic audio equalizer effect that plays on top of the base videos, designed by Dan Henry of Focus Lighting, that responds to the club’s music visually on the rib cage walls, tying the music to the video, and a randomizer effect allows the content to keep changing constantly without manual input.
The theatrical rig for the dance floor, specified by Neu Visions Design, comprises 14 Martin Professional MAC 301 LED Wash Fixtures, eight MAC 350 Entour LED Profiles, 12 Elation ELAR 180 LED PARs, four Martin Atomic 3000 DMX Strobes with Atomic Colors, one Martin JEM K1 Hazer, and one Barco High End Systems FQ-100 Fog Generator. Preprogrammed lighting effects can be overridden by the DJ. “The bold, energetic design is designed to appeal to teens,” says Hannon, “so they don’t feel they are missing out by not going to the adult club.”