We were contacted by Tony Whitener. Mt. Pisgah Lutheran Church of Bethlehem North Carolina was in the middle of building a new assembly hall. Tony informed us they had several lighting needs as well as a few lighting problems. First – we were told the construction crew was not aware that there were to be recessed lighting above the stage entry where a curved beam was installed for support. When the framing and sheet rock crew came in, they added the framing and sheet rock directly against the underside of the beam, leaving only 3 ¾ inch space between the sheet rock and solid beam. This meant the standard recessed fixtures, requiring a minimum of 7 inches, would never fit.
We designed and offered a complete, one piece recessed “can style” downlight. We incorporated our patented universal downlight mounting system. The entire light, housing, and junction box was combined into a single light fixture. The portion of this new fixture that is developed to fit into the ceiling opening, only requires 3 ½ inches of space. This gave a ¼-inch gap between the light and beam. It fit to perfection. This design was so successful, it is now a part of our standard downlight product line. We have since designed a new version, allowing the fixture to be placed in even tighter situations with a minimum of 1½ inches.
Second – the church had invested in some very attractive and inspiring, heavyweight stained glass murals of various sizes. As they could not create all the external window openings necessary to install the murals, and even if they could, the sun would only illuminate one side at a time, and only during days when it wasn’t overcast. They were determined to have the murals artificially lit. They had tried placing a fluorescent tube light fixture behind the stained-glass with less than desirable results. Only sections of the stained-glass was lit thus, this method was not acceptable. We were asked, if there was a window opening installed in the walls behind the stage, could we create a lighting system that could be mounted within the same framing that the stained-glass would be installed? It only allowed 3 ½ inches of space to work with.
Our solution was to custom build high color rendering LED flat-panel lighting to the dimensions of each of the stained-glass murals. We designed the lights with a dimming control system to allow the church to choose the exact amount of illumination for each mural, and adjust the desired level of light.
Third – the Church had limited space above the drop ceiling over the stage and in the seating area due to plumbing and HVAC. They had planned to place standard Troffer lights in an unflattering pattern so as to avoid the areas without the required space. We offered our high output flat-panel LED fixtures, as these fixtures only require 1 ¾ inches of space, at the fixture junction box. This allowed the Church to place all the drop-ceiling lights in a symmetrically balanced, more aesthetically pleasing pattern.
Invictus created a museum quality lighting system, and the Church members are very pleased!
Fixtures used in this project:
Custom Sized Watt-Selectable Flat Panel