Lighting designer Giles Mayall specified an Avolites Pearl 2004 console to control lighting in The Ice House, a promotional ice dwelling constructed by UK based ice artists, The Ice Box, for the Dutch-German IMG Diba Bank.

The Ice House project in Germany was handled by production company Fact & Fiction. The structure was used to highlight the bank’s mortgage products and services at trade shows including their Ideal Home Show.

Mayall was working for UK-based JVC Events, who take care of the technical and logistical needs of all of the Ice Box’s installations.

The Ice House was an 100 square metre single story building measuring 18 metres long by 6 metres deep and 3.7 metres high, and Mayall’s task was to architecturally light the space - inside and out - in the client’s blue and green corporate colours.

It was an obvious choice to go for LED light-sources - their low heat emissions making them ideal for illuminating the ice without melting it! Mayall and JVC’s Vince Roper spent considerable time researching the effects different LED fixtures had on ice, and seeing how they reacted to freezing environments, before specifying 24 James Thomas PixelLine 1044 battens and 20 Pulsar ChromaFlood 2000s for the project. These were supplemented with a small number of fluorescent tubes.

When it came to choosing a console, Mayall wanted something simple, robust and reliable that could be left to run the show without needing constant attention. “The Pearl was ideal” he says. Avolites’ most popular volume console has also been operated in all extremes of weather the world over, and is known as one of the most resilient pieces of lighting control hardware on the planet through heat, cold, snow, rain, water and wind! Other neat Pearl features which help in severe environmental conditions include the console’s ability to kick back in where it left off in the event of power loss.

The Pearl was located in the ‘Dog House’ at the back of the Ice House, along with the dimmers. Although the temperatures weren’t quite so extreme here, they were still very chilly!

In addition to the static colour looks and scenes illuminating the ice, Mayall also programmed and ran a few animation chases off the Pearl, the main one being a blue and green “breathing” sequence, which made the house feel alive.