Illuminating heritage buildings: ERCO luminaires x Casambi controls
ERCO and Casambi’s longstanding partnership revolutionizes lighting in heritage buildings, offering flexibility, dynamic scenes, and enhanced experiences for clients.
ERCO, widely recognized as a frontrunner in the architectural lighting industry, has forged a longstanding partnership with Casambi to create sustainable and adaptable lighting solutions specifically tailored for heritage buildings. By combining ERCO’s high-quality luminaires with Casambi’s advanced control system, the firm has been able to enhance the lighting experience, create dynamic lighting scenes, and provide maximum flexibility for its clients. This blog post briefly highlights how the integration of Casambi control into ERCO luminaires has been successfully applied in high-profile, heritage-building projects.
ERCO showroom
ERCO Italy’s showroom in Milan is designed to showcase its products, featuring three main clusters: culture, public buildings, and office space. Casambi’s control system manages the showroom lighting, providing the flexibility needed to change and re-adapt the lighting scenes regularly. The Casambi App acts as the core of the control system, offering an intuitive and powerful interface for ERCO Italy to manage the lighting according to the specific requirements of each cluster.
‘The combination of our luminaires and Casambi control empowers us to create captivating lighting effects using colored light. By illuminating walls or objects with colored light, we can transform the lighting into a play of brilliance, making the light itself an attraction’ says Andrea Nava, the Managing Director of ERCO Italy.
This feature demonstrates to customers how a unique and artistic touch can be given to heritage buildings, highlighting their architectural elements, and creating visually stunning experiences without the need for complex wiring or interference with the structure. Another key application is tunable white lighting, where they can recreate the color temperature of daylight throughout the day. This feature provides a more natural and dynamic environment for visitors and occupants of the spaces illuminated by ERCO luminaires controlled by Casambi.
Integration of Casambi
ERCO has seamlessly incorporated Casambi into its fixtures by means of a discrete module containing a Casambi chip that can be plugged onto a luminaire, ensuring easy handling and immediate wireless control of the luminaires. These modules can be installed and uninstalled easily, allowing for quick adjustments and modifications to the lighting setup.
‘The flexibility that you can achieve with the combination ERCO and Casambi enables an unparalleled level of flexibility, breathing new life into historical buildings’ adds Andrea.
Domus Aurea, Rome
The Domus Aurea is an underground space from the Roman era and a former residence of Emperor Nero. ERCO Italy used the integration of their luminaires with Casambi control to bring the ancient space to life. By dynamically illuminating the rooms with torch-like artificial light, visitors can explore and discover hidden treasures step by step. Additionally, the closed windows are simulated to mimic daylight, creating a remarkably realistic lighting environment.
‘The sense of natural lighting coming in from the windows looks incredibly real. It looks like actual daylight’ adds Andrea.
Ara Pacis, Rome
The Ara Pacis was initially lit using halogen lights and an outdated control system. ERCO Italy replaced the lighting system with LED luminaires and integrated them with Casambi control. By focusing on the concept of daylighting and moonlighting, they successfully replicated the original lighting design. The combination resulted in significant energy savings and allowed for dynamic lighting control, enriching the visitor experience while preserving the exhibit’s architectural integrity.
‘One of the interesting points about this project was achieving an impressive energy-saving rate of over 75-80 percent. This remarkable outcome was made possible by a dual approach: replacing outdated halogens with a modern LED system and combining it with the implementation of the Casambi system’ he says.
Cappella dei Principi, Florence
The Cappella dei Principi is a chapel in Florence known for its impressive dome. The challenge was to create an artificial lighting system in a space that had never been illuminated before. With Casambi as the only feasible solution due to structural constraints, ERCO Italy utilized their luminaires integrated with Casambi control. The lighting system allowed for dynamic illumination, enabling visitors to experience the space in different ways while maintaining the structural integrity of the chapel.
‘The presence of strong structural boundaries presented significant challenges, leaving no room for intervention in the existing electrical system and rendering the placement of additional cabling impossible. In this context, Casambi emerged as the sole viable solution.’
The partnership between ERCO and Casambi really has transformed the lighting landscape in heritage buildings, introducing a highly intuitive and powerful solution that offers unparalleled flexibility and ease of use. Notably, Andrea explains that ERCO Italy’s sales of fixtures with Casambi have surpassed those with standard DALI drivers by a staggering 2.5 times.
‘Flexibility is a keyword for us. I can’t emphasize enough the paramount importance of flexibility in our portfolio, which encompasses optics, lenses, accessories, and lighting features. Our commitment to adaptability enables our clients to achieve diverse outcomes in any lighting situation. Partnering with Casambi, whose foundation lies in flexibility as well, creates a truly magical combination,’ states Andrea.
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