(Un)strictly Ballroom

However, two aspects of the electric lighting scheme stand out. First are the custom polished aluminum ring luminaires suspended from the ceiling which, according to Porter, convey “the presence of a chandelier” and add a decorative edge to the space. Ranging in size from 2 1/2 feet to 50 feet in diameter, they house warm-white LEDs (oriented upward) that reflect in the specular metal panel ceiling. “Their physical form is a metaphor for drops of water,” Porter explains. “Because you only see an image of the lights, it adds a layer of spatial depth, translucency, and reflectivity.” Second is the sophisticated LED lighting system made up of two banks of LEDs: one to backlight the stretched-fabric ceiling panels and the other to graze the 30-foot-tall white-painted glass fiber reinforced gypsum (GRGF) wall panels that line three sides of the room. Developed with narrow, medium, and wide beam distributions to minimize the physical massing of hardware in the clerestory vaults, the custom color-changing luminaires can be programmed for any purpose. While standard scenes of fixed colors are pre-set, “the ceiling and walls are all programmed independently of each other, so it can be quiet and conventional, and then you can have some glitzy ceremony with flashing lights and music,” Porter says.

Like the custom ring luminaires that abstractly reference the project’s theme of water—a fitting choice given the city’s location on the nexus of the Kansas and Missouri rivers and its identity as the “City of Fountains”—the GRGF panels take on various qualities of light and shadow and make a more literal reference to water with their sculpted wave pattern. In addition, suspended, perforated, specular ceiling panels (with an acoustical absorption property) reflect qualities of the interior environment, adding another layer of depth to the space.

With such an integrated and elaborate daylighting and electric lighting system, the ballroom requires equally sophisticated controls. Consequently, each fixture can be independently programmed so the lighting can be adjusted to accommodate specific room configurations. Custom networking and LCD control panels were developed to link three disparate systems—DALI (digital addressable lighting interface) for the house lights, theatrical controls for the color-changing LEDs, and another set of controls for the facility management system—to improve usability, address diverse programmatic needs, conserve energy (through daylight harvesting controls), and “achieve the advanced end goal while not making it so apparently visual,” Porter notes. To put the scope of the ballroom’s controls in perspective, the custom LCD control panel contains a digital color wheel that controls 361 color-changing LED luminaires tied to 930 channels.

With all of these components, the project was not without its share of challenges. “On one level it was a luxurious project because there was a lot of ambition and the client and design team were totally on board,” Porter explains, “but at the same time it was a city project and there are budgets and maintenance factors that had to be considered, people you had to convince of desired intent, and color combinations, mock-ups, and technology that had to be worked out.” But, in the end, Porter says, “It was all worth it.” Very much a collaborative effort among the team of architects, interior designers, lighting designers, and other consultants, the project strikes a balance between conceptual and practical objectives, a great asset for a project where the design team could have pursued typical layout strategies—inward-focused spaces devoid of connection to the outside and light. Rather, the design strategy, initiated by Porter and his team, provide the unexpected—daylight—and in turn create a compelling space not usually associated with the building typology of a convention center or ballroom. Thanks to the incorporation of daylight, the space is given a sense of scale, and its occupants a sense of time and place.