Press Information

21 October 2013
Philips Lighting helps draw people back to Christchurch’s CBD

Philips Lighting announces a number of outdoor lighting initiatives in Christchurch that will enhance the city centre and its landmarks, play a role in drawing people back into the CBD, and help the city to realise its vision of liveability and sustainability.

Philips has come on board as a sponsor for the annual Christchurch Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA). The one-of-a-kind festival is taking place over Labour Weekend and is expected to attract more than 30,000 people into the city centre to experience urban regeneration through large-scale collaboration.

Philips will be lighting the way for the major event of the festival, Free Theatre’s Canterbury Tales, a carnivalesque procession through the former red zone designed to engage people in an exploration of different ideas of what a city is and should be. As an extravaganza of light, colour and interactivity, Philips will play a key role by providing high definition LED lighting along the route, and spotlighting the oversized puppets that feature in the performance.

David Procter of Philips Lighting New Zealand says, “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to be involved in this festival, which not only provides an opportunity for the community to experience their city in a different way but also provides an opportunity for us to showcase how lighting can contribute to a cityscape.”

As one of the winners of the global 2013 Citymart competition designed to provide the world’s cities with innovative solutions, Philips is also set to pilot a new outdoor lighting control system in central Christchurch. This involves installing advanced LED-based street lighting with smart controls that will enable outdoor spaces to be properly lit to the right levels at the right times.

As part of the Citymart pilot, Philips has also proposed the use of architectural ColorKinetics LED lighting to illuminate features of the outdoor spaces and enable public interaction through motion-activated lighting.

As well as the aesthetic advantages of LED-based outdoor lighting, it also delivers significant energy efficiency gains that will reduce the city’s power bill and, given the long life of LED, deliver additional savings on maintenance costs. Crucially, the outdoor lighting control system being piloted is also scaleable, which means it can be matched to the rebuild programme for the central city.

“Philips is committed to being part of the Christchurch rebuild and helping the city to achieve its goal of becoming one of the world’s most liveable cities by using lighting to enhance public spaces and contributing to sustainability,” said Mr. Procter.

Other projects Philips Lighting has undertaken in the city to date include supplying Philips Roadstar LED lighting at the new Wigram Skies subdivision, and providing full LED lighting solutions for the new office building at 335 Lincoln Road and for the refurbished BNZ office on William Pickering Drive.

In addition to this, Philips is supporting the SCAPE Public Art and the Solidarity Grid permanent lighting display. Solidarity Grid is a creative infrastructure replacement project for Christchurch designed by German artist Mischa Kuball. The display consists of 21 operational street lamps donated from cities around the world, which will be installed over the next three years along the walkway to the east of North Hagley Park on Park Terrace.
For more information about FESTA, Scape Solidarity Grid and the global Citymart competition, please visit www.festa.org.nz www.scapebiennial.org.nz/solidarity-grid and www.citymart.com respectively.

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