An exhibition-style lighting solution was required to showcase the blending of the three religious faiths at the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi
There aren’t many sites on the planet where a variety of faiths all come together to celebrate the multi-disciplined nature of worship. Dedicated to the pursuit of peaceful faith coexistence for generations to come, the Abrahamic Family House (ABH) on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island is certainly an impressive oddity.
The complex has been designed by world-renowned Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye OM OBE, who specializes in public architecture, creating symbolic buildings designed to tell stories. At its heart are a mosque, a church, and a synagogue – designed of equal stature, size, and materiality to eliminate any sense of hierarchy. The mosque is oriented towards Mecca, the church towards the east, and the synagogue towards Jerusalem. The architecture is beyond impressive, each building a 100-foot-tall cube of bush-hammered concrete, standing atop an expansive limestone plaza.
The primary aim of ABH is to bridge man’s common humanity through the exchange of knowledge, ongoing dialogue, and the practice of faith. Beyond the three landmark buildings that initially grabbed the eye, the real magic lies within. Nestled between the mosque and church is a welcome area that connects to a multi-use area and exhibition space. The entire thing serves as an educational centre, with guests taken on a journey through various immersive exhibits.
“The exhibition area serves as a common space where guests can experience aspects of all three faiths together – it’s a showcase of how the UAE has welcomed all of these different cultures together,” explains Triangle Power Solutions senior project manager Liz George, who has been involved in the project since the early days. “There's an area called the Oculus, where they showcase videos accompanied by music. It’s split up into multiple zones with each presenting something different.”
The first installation, Faith, comprises 11 dynamic, petal-shaped AV screens that showcase different life events in the religious journeys of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The second exhibit, Word, focuses on the three respective holy texts of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. showcases nine extracts from the Quran, Bible, and Torah. The final installation, Place, explores the relationship between religious spaces and faith. Here, immersive screens incorporated into a plinth and the ceiling depict different prayer environments, like the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.
“When you first enter the complex, to the right of the reception is the story of the ABH,” furthers George. “Next, you’re directed inside a dark room with showcased projections of various prayers. After this, you move through another dark room illuminated with religious symbols and finally end at a magnetic wall that visitors can pin their wishes or goals. Within the Word exhibit, a show runs where every 30 seconds a different sermon plays, cycling through the various faiths. Here, we integrated gobos lighting that highlights the accompanying sermons by projecting Muslim, Jewish, and Christian symbolism across the walls. It’s a nice story, and from the visitor perspective it's all one integrated experience.”
Triangle was tasked with integrating an exhibition-style lighting package throughout these areas that would augment the audiovisual system construction by XYZ Technologies. “Initially, we became involved in the project through the consultant directly and were supplied a concept from the lighting designer,” recalls the senior project manager. “But as the project progressed, there were several design changes made, and this is where the Oculus space came in. XYZ was tasked with providing the AV integration throughout this space, and so we worked closely with them to incorporate the lighting package.
“They came up with the concept of using AV to trigger the show control because there's a range of audio cues and video projections happening at the same time. They wanted it so that when Islam prayer comes on, the lighting will flip to show a half-moon and all these kinds of things. That was the initial concept, and we had to integrate with the wider system over IP in order to synchronize everything. This was done using a server called Isaac – it gives us UDP commands, and we take those commands and use them to trigger different scenes within our system.”
Illuminating these exhibition spaces are more than 200 lighting Prolights products from the manufacturer’s EclDisplay DAT and Wash ranges – flexible LED spotlights specifically designed for museums, galleries, retail spaces, or any public venue where a classical-looking fixture is needed alongside several control options, sources, optics, and brightness levels.
In total, 69 EclDisplay DAT 30K, 64 EclDisplay Wash L2550, and 31 EclDisplay RZL2040B zoomable profiles illuminate the exhibits. “The beam angles differ in each area between 25°–50° and 20°–40°, and they are installed in a variety of configurations depending on the ceiling, mounted on lighting tracks, ceiling clamped or directly ceiling mounted,” says George. “We particularly like the flexibility of the products. They offer multiple options from RDM to DMX and DALI. We also have several kinds of lenses that allow the same unit to function for spot and gobos, plus they are really perfect for integrating colour changing. You can load the gobo with locked accessories that help to tell the story of the project.”
As has so often been the case off the back of the pandemic, one company’s loss is another’s victory. “Originally, a different manufacturer was specified by the consultant for the lighting – he was quite biased to using only this specific brand – however they were experiencing serious issues with chip manufacturing and shipping delays of well over six months. We were forced to explore alternatives, and this led us to Akram and the team at PRO LAB who proposed Prolights. We took some samples to give to the consultant, performed a range of tests, and ultimately got everything approved for use. By the time we completed that process, the consultant had become convinced that the Prolights fixtures could match or exceed everything promised by the original brand.”
In total, 69 EclDisplay DAT 30K, 64 EclDisplay Wash L2550, and 31 EclDisplay RZL2040B zoomable profiles illuminate the exhibits. “The beam angles differ in each area between 25°–50° and 20°–40°, and they are installed in a variety of configurations depending on the ceiling, mounted on lighting tracks, ceiling clamped or directly ceiling mounted,” says George. “We particularly like the flexibility of the products. They offer multiple options from RDM to DMX and DALI. We also have several kinds of lenses that allow the same unit to function for spot and gobos, plus they are really perfect for integrating colour changing. You can load the gobo with locked accessories that help to tell the story of the project.”
As has so often been the case off the back of the pandemic, one company’s loss is another’s victory. “Originally, a different manufacturer was specified by the consultant for the lighting – he was quite biased to using only this specific brand – however they were experiencing serious issues with chip manufacturing and shipping delays of well over six months. We were forced to explore alternatives, and this led us to Akram and the team at PRO LAB who proposed Prolights. We took some samples to give to the consultant, performed a range of tests, and ultimately got everything approved for use. By the time we completed that process, the consultant had become convinced that the Prolights fixtures could match or exceed everything promised by the original brand.”