Lumasense | Philips lighting

Lumasense FZC

Meet the partner

Lumasense is a Middle East-based master lighting distributor and Certified Value Added Partner with operation in various countries throughout the Middle East as well as in North America. The company focuses on specification-grade architectural lighting projects and provides fixtures, controls, and services.

Lumasense has already been awarded with hundreds of projects in diverse application areas such as hospitality, retail, health care & commercial offices, museums and iconic structures as well as arenas and building facades. These project awards have included the commissioning of some of the world’s most high-profile constructions such as Burj Khalifa, The Dubai Mall, The Palm Jumeirah, Hamad International Airport, The Qatar Ministry of Interior and King Abdullah University of Science & Technology. Lumasense has an engineering-rich culture and a team focusing on lighting and controls specification in close collaboration with architects and lighting designers. Due to the extensive knowledge of the team on different products, controls and installation specifications, Lumasense has become the local voice of lighting and controls manufacturers.

Watch a video about the partnership between Philips and Lumasense

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Partnership level

Certified Value Added Partner

Specialized in

Architectural, Retail and Hospitality Lighting

Website

www.lumasense.com

Projects

Abu Dhabi Financial Center

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi Financial Center is a uniquely designed building that faces the waterfront of Al-Maryah Island. The building is located on top of the Galleria Mall with the rear side of the facade facing the mall entrance. It is shaped as a trapezoid to individually stand out.

Becoming eco-friendly was one of the major requirements, and in order to do this the building requires the front and rear facades to be illuminated with LED direct view lights. The lighting fixture must fit inside 4-1/2 foot long U channels installed at the facade of the building. Warm and cool white colors are required to run during normal operating times and the lighting fixtures must be consistent with their color uniformity when outputting white colors. An option for RGB effects and playing video animations are also required for special occasions and both facades must be controlled and can be manually synced. A lighting control system that can be synced with the building management system is required and must have the option to be upgraded in the future.

Exterior view of Abu Dhabi financial center, a lighting project by Philips and Lumasense

A design was proposed using Philips Color Kinetics iColor Accent Powercore. The lighting fixture was customized by Philips Color Kinetics from 4 feet to 4.5 feet for this project as a special requirement to fit inside the U channels. The LED chips were upgraded as well accommodated to the requirement of having color uniformity when it is outputting white colors using Color Kinetics patented Optibin technology that automatically adjusts the color range when connected with other similar lighting fixtures. This was applied to future lines of iColor Accent Powercores. The lighting fixtures were addressed to four pixels per address to accommodate the option for playing video animations and RGB effects. Two Light System Managers from Philips Color Kinetics were used, one for each side of the facade to individually accommodate the number of lights with their corresponding IP addresses and two keypads are connected to their respective Light System Managers and make it easy to switch between the lighting shows assigned to the buttons. The Light System Managers were connected via RS232 to the Lutron Building Management System to trigger the shows that are controlled through the keypad as an optional override.

The Galleria Mall uses the installed facade lighting to play animated shows during special events for special occasions as an ambient backdrop. The facade is able to scroll text and images as well as to play videos that can be seen across the island. The lighting control system can be easily upgraded to have remote access, automated building synchronization, and the possibility to add more lights if required.

Intercontinental Hotel

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Inspired by a graceful sailboat, the Intercontinental Hotel stands tall on Dubai Creek and is ideally located for businesses close to Burj Khalifa and Dubai World Trade Centre. It stands next to Crowne Plaza Hotel, which is a conglomerate subsidy of IHG hotel family around the world. The Hotel is considered to be a landmark location in Dubai due to its proximity to Festival City Mall and Dubai Airport. The major challenge of the project was to find such a low power consuming replacement of cold-cathode facade lighting that can accentuate both Crowne Plaza and Intercontinental Hote. The façade lighting must have the ability to create color effect scenes that can beautify the buildings as well as the surrounding area and also it must be able to be synchronized in order to play animated shows or scrolling text and images for special events and holidays.

The design, proposed by Philips was to replace the existing cold cathode lighting facade lighting fixtures using Philips Color Kinetics iColor Accent Powercore. A joint venture project was agreed upon with Lumasense to prepare the DMX control system design as well as to supervise the installation and commission the site. ColorGraze Powecore fixtures were added at the roof deck of Crown Plaza to increase the ambient effect of the newly installed lights and highlight the building’s signage. The LED Lights are controlled using Philips Color Kinetics Kinet Protocol via Ethernet wired connections. Two Philips Color Kinetics Light System Managers and Two dedicated Ethernet Controller Keypad were installed inside the Engineering Office in order to be able to control both buildings individually.

The astonishing facade of Intercontinental Hotel at Dubai illuminated with Philips Led lighting

The installed lights have vastly improved the buildings’ physical structure due to its current disposition of running pre-programmed shows throughout the evening. The Light System Manager’s official firmware was updated because of this project due to the lighting system’s great requirement of IP addresses to run the lights. The DMX control system is able to run pre-programmed shows where it has become a landmark location to run special shows for New Year’s and other local holidays.

Colourful façade at Intercontinental Hotel at Dubai illuminated with Philips LED lighting

This project is the second largest installation of iColor Accent Powercore lights in the Middle East and at the same time the very first project done by the joint venture of Philips and Lumasense. The success of this project established the good working relationship between the two companies and that is still held to this day.

Midfield Tunnel

Doha, Qatar

The Midfield Tunnel, including two underground roads, 660 meters long each connects the main highway to the New Doha International Airport Terminal. The project’s primary requirement called for the installation of such lighting that highlights the aluminum reflective panels installed within the tunnel’s ceiling. The lighting must have RGB LED color-changing fixtures that offer the possibility to run different lighting effects for special occasions and be economically viable for long term usage. The tunnel lighting must automatically adjust to the intensity depending on the time of the day outside the tunnel and the lighting control system should also be able to sync in the future with the New Doha International Airport and control the LED lights at the entrance of the tunnel.

The exterior view of Midfield tunnel, a great outcome from the partnership between Philips and Lumasense

Specifications called for a design using Philips Color Kinetics iColor Graze Powercore that can illuminate and highlight the aluminum reflective panels inside the tunnel. Using a mixture of Philips Color Kinetics and Pharos Controllers with Fiber Optic Systems a solution was provided to manage the great distance from the controller to the end of the tunnel. Fiber Optic media converters were installed at the control room to convert the fiber optic signal to normal Ethernet data. To keep the lighting signals strong, Weidmuller switches with fiber optic ports were used to convert the fiber optic signal to Ethernet data at certain locations inside the tunnel. Eventually, the long runs were connected to the iColor Graze Powercore fixtures. To adjust the light output intensity of the tunnel lights automatically, a light sensor was installed and connected to the Lumasense DMX control system. To control (switch on and off) the LED lights at the entrance of the tunnel, a customized Lighting Relay Controller was supplied using Dynalite DMX Relay to interface to the rest of the Lumasense DMX control system.

Lumasense and Philips create a great ambience at Midfield tunnel while increasing safety for the drivers

The installed lighting system highlights the tunnel’s interior design as well as the ceiling aluminum panels which was one of the project’s requirements. The combination of light sensors and LED fixtures is economically viable on an on-going basis because of its power efficiency. The Lumasense DMX control system can be upgraded in the future to add more features such as sensors that detect vehicles passing through to change the lighting effects inside the tunnel. The DMX controller is also upgradable to connect with the New Doha International Airport if required. The system is capable of being controlled remotely over the Internet if required in the future. At that time the illumination of the tunnel was the largest installation of Colorgraze Powercore fixtures in the world.

Al Jassimiya Tower

Doha, Qatar

Al Jassimiya Tower is 44 story construction with an exceptional location along Doha’s skyline. The iconic Tower is designed with an oriental theme including different Arabic elements such as domes, wind catchers, and mashrabiyas.

One of the requirements of the new façade lighting was that it must accentuate the different architectural elements, therefore direct view lighting was not the best solution. Even though it is indirect, the facade lighting had to be strong enough because the tower can be seen from miles away. The design works started after the facade of the tower was almost done. Installation locations and power availability were very limited and since the facade has a bright white finish, color mixing at the lighting source had to be exceptional.

The exterior of Al Jassimiya Tower illuminated with colourful LED lighting by Philips and Lumasense

An extensive animation was prepared to amuse the client and get his approval to start the project. More than 150 RGB fixtures from Philips Color Kinetics were synchronized together to achieve the desired outcome. Different fixture types and multiple beam angles were adapted to different situations giving a soft final touch that blends into the architecture. Strong ColorReach Powercore was at the essence of lighting the big facade area. The powerful fixtures were distributed to avoid installations on every floor. Several mockups were prepared specially for the building’s largest dome and eventually a clever combination of ColorBlast fixtures installed at specific locations was adopted to fully and uniformly light the domes. The facade lighting system was designed to be easily operated with fixtures that can be controlled individually or in groups. Triggers for different lighting effects are delivered through the touch panel or the building management system.

Al Jassimiya Tower is an icon during the night as well as during the day. Standing under the tower at night allows the observer to discover the beautiful architectural elements of the building.