Designed by Scottish architects RMJM and completed in 2001, the Falkirk Wheel is the centrepiece of the £84.5m 'Millennium Link', the UK's largest canal restoration project, developed by British Waterways to reconnect the Union Canal with the Forth & Clyde Canal, re-establishing access from the east to west coast of Scotland.
SSUK was asked by British Waterways to come up with an eye-catching scheme to light the wheel. With the adjacent visitor centre also hired out for corporate functions, it was realized that changing colours and the possibilities of image projection onto the pale grey 1,200-tonne steel structure would be a valuable enhancement for the site. Phillip Martin, mechanical and electrical manager for British Waterways approached SSUK's Scott Maitland, with the brief that he wanted the wheel to become "vibrant and alive" through illumination. Maitland jumped at the chance: "The structure is magnificent," he says, "and I was hugely enthused about creating a lighting design from the word 'go'."
He knew that Studio Due would fit the requirement - and the budget - perfectly. After several on-site tests, he specified 31 Mini City 150s with shutters, two City Color 1800s and a City Beam 2.5k. "They were the brightest and the best fixtures for the job," he says.
The City Beam blasts the front face of the Wheel, while at each end are two Mini Citys, and dead centre of the main section are the two City Color 1800s, mounted in the well at the base of the structure. A further two Mini Citys are focussed up onto the curved aluminium panel of the main wheelhouse. Each side of the wheel's four supporting columns are three Mini Citys, attached to the concrete with customized brackets. Each fixture is crossed over to light the inner side of the next column.
The spine of the wheel - a viaduct channel where boats at the top water level enter and exit - features five structural hoops. With only a 12V power supply available here, LED lighting was the only option. SSUK designed some waterproof 12-way RGB LED fixtures for this (these will become an off-the-shelf product for the company's soon-to-be-launched architectural division, LumiVision).
The LEDs and all the Studio Due kit is controlled by a Robe 1024 DMX lighting desk. This was chosen by SSUK's installation team crew chief, Duncan Turner; he's a big fan of the desk, and thought it was ideal for this application because it's quick and easy to programme, and is comprehensible to the semi-technical personnel at the Wheel Centre who will be operating it most of the time. The 1024 has dual DMX out - unusual for a board at that level; another useful feature from the programmer and installer's viewpoint is the automatic disk back-up.
For the interior of the visitor's centre, SSUK supplied a selection of Robe 250 and 575 moving heads. These are utilized for image and logo projection onto the wheel for special events, and also for creating colour washes and atmosphere for functions. Control is via a separate Robe 512 controller.
