Xi’an Olympic Sports Center

The Olympic Sports Center is a multi-purpose sports facility located in Xi’an International Logistics & Trade Park, facing Bahe River in the west and Lishan Mountain in the east. The complex boasts one stadium and two pavilions: a 60,000-seat main stadium, a 18,000-seat gymnasium and a 4,000-seat aquatic center. The entire structure covers a construction area of 525,000 square meters, erecting a new landmark in the city as well as a new benchmark for recreation, sports and entertainment in Northwest China.

In addition to undertaking the opening and closing ceremonies of the 14th National Games of China, the Xi’an Olympic Sports Center is also the venue for important programs such as track and field, gymnastics, swimming and diving etc. OSRAM Traxon e:cue partners with Toryo International Lighting Design, HES Group and Landsky Technology Ltd. to customize a smart dynamic lighting scheme for the Xi’an Olympic Sports Center.

Brightened venue entertains guests at home and abroad

The design of the main stadium is inspired by the Silk Road and the pomegranate blossom, the city flower of Xi’an. The architecture lines, so free, graceful and dynamic, echo with the flow, fluidity and excitement of flowers blooming and a silk’s elegant movement. The aquatic center, on the contrary, is square and dignified, using 58 rhombic colonnades and a glass façade to combine virtuality and reality, strength and delicacy. The gymnasium owns a hexadecagonal roof, like an ancient building stretching its cornices high into the sky on a side view. Together the three buildings produce a combined beauty of static and dynamic qualities.

The project team, consisting of experts from OSRAM Traxon e:cue, Toryo, HES and Landsky, tailor-makes a connected lighting for the Xi’an Olympic Sports Center, providing about 420,000 sets of customized RGBW dots and LED floods for the main stadium exterior, and around 12,000 sets of various LED fixtures (Dots, Linears and Washers) for the aquatic center and the gymnasium.

Lighting design and installation have faced great challenges due to the complicated architecture. With an undulating canopy and façade consisting of 28 petal-like modules supported by 28 V-shaped columns in 7 various shapes, the main stadium has more than 6,000 freeform structures. Moreover, an all-glass façade allows for rather limited maneuver space when decorating the aquatic center, while the gymnasium doubles the trouble with its hexadecagonal structure.

Ingenious planning ensures true connectivity

The project team has repeatedly amended the plan through various field studies and software simulations. LED fixtures are arranged in a prismatic matrix on the main stadium façade, with an increased pixel density to form a number of palettes. Every 588 palettes constitute a petal-like module, and 28 modules constitute a lighting to dress up the pomegranate-blossom-shaped stadium. The aquatic center and gymnasium use customized compact LED fixtures to better fit in with varied architectural structures.

The smart dynamic lighting scheme transforms the buildings’ exterior into 3 tremendous display screens, vividly demonstrating thematic light shows to cheer for the National Games, promoting sportsmanship and heightening a vibrant atmosphere. Each LED dot on the façade, capable of achieving full-color change, has an integrated microprocessor chip to interact with the control system, realize precise control of a single light and ensure accurate interpretation of colors. The lighting effect, more importantly, can be preset according to event, special occasion and season change.

All OSRAM Traxon e:cue customized LED lights installed are overseen by the e:cue smart lighting management system. A connected façade lighting, built by a high-performance Lighting Control Engine 2 fx and an array of control engines such as the SYMPL Essential Node, Butler Pro and Butler S2, synchronizes with the interior illumination and lighting shows in nearby area, enabling click-to-start, scalable and multi-mode management.