Arnolfini

Project Overview

  • LocationBristol
  • ClientUniversity of the West of England
  • Electrical ContractorB & D Carter Electrical Services

The Arnolfini is an international centre for contemporary arts located in the Grade II listed, Bush House in Bristol.

The building sits proudly on Bristol’s historic harbourside in the heart of the city. Widely recognised as being amongst the leading contemporary arts centres in the UK, The Arnolfini boasts 3 floors of galleries, a specialist arts bookshop, cinema, performance space and café-bar.

GDS were approached by the gallery in the Spring of 2022 and asked to survey the buildings 5 gallery spaces. In direct collaboration with the venues technical team, GDS developed a custom track light to the exacting requirements of the space inclusive of variable zoom lens, ultra-high CRI, tunable white CCT, and wireless control.

Solutions Provided

The Arnolfini hosts and exhibits an extremely diverse range of contemporary art. For this project, it was imperative that the venue was able to precisely tune the colour temperature and beam angle of individual luminaires to suit the needs of each specific collection.

GDS Cygnus track lights provide the perfect combination of flexibility, and quality of light across these wonderful spaces. A total of 153 Cygnus luminaires are spread across 5 galleries with the ability to easily re-locate within the venue as required.

In collaboration with the Arnolfini technical team, we specified Casambi control for each individual lighting fixture. This allows the technicians, and curators at the gallery to finely tune the colour temperature and output of each fixture using a mobile device. Coupled with the Cygnus’ toolless beam angle adjustment, the optimal lighting solution for each gallery can now be accurately, and consistently achieved.

"Working with GDS has been a really simple process. They were extremely knowledgeable, positive about the challenges that we were facing, and were happy to adapt core ranges to meet our requirements. We’re extremely pleased with the result and thoroughly look forward to engaging the GDS team again"

Jack Friswell

Technical Producer - Arnolfini