The Greater Atlanta Christian School Fine Arts Center showcases a new lighting fixture that nicely accentuates the exterior design of the building and surrounding landscape. LightShower™ from Visa Lighting is an architectural wall sconce that produces decorative light shower patterns on the fixture's mounting surface. With four housing styles producing distinct designs, the fixture can serve as a striking design element for numerous types of applications. Current designs available from the product line include the full circle, starburst, cross, and up/down patterns.

The Atlanta installation utilized the product to create several showers of light visible on the upper exterior portion of the building. "The new Greater Atlanta Christian School Fine Arts Center is widely recognized throughout our community. Rarely do I go to civic or other events where people don't speak of it, particularly those who pass by at night," said David Fincher, president of the school. "The unique lighting, reflections, and color tones have captured the imagination of many who consider it the best looking building in Gwinnett County,” said Fincher. “We are very pleased with the image it has brought to our campus."

Originally designed as custom/modified unit specifically for the project, the fixture was a collaboration between the project's lighting designer, Michael Angelo Tortora, and Visa Lighting. "At the beginning of the design phase, I sketched a fixture that would release a specific radiant pattern of light," said Tortora, IES, USITT, Senior Project Lighting Designer, Kling Lindquist in Philadelphia.

Four housing styles, including the full circle, cross, starburst, and up/down, are available with each producing a distinct light shower pattern. LightShower, like all Visa Lighting products, are sold through Manufacturer's Sales Representatives everywhere. For more information, visit www.visalighting.com for detailed specification information, or contact the specifier hotline at 800/788-8472 to identify a local Visa Sales Representative.

Tortora was formerly with Newcomb & Boyd Lighting Design Group, the lighting designers for the Atlanta project. "The brilliant, flaming glow, that was sometimes evident around the heads of specific religious characters within Renaissance paintings, truly became the stepping stone of the design, a visual metaphor to provide direction,” said Tortora. “This concept led me to create a fixture with a dramatic spiritual impact."

In order to create the effect, Visa Lighting modified one of its existing products. "Tortora asked us to modify our existing Southridge exterior wall sconce to produce brilliant decorative light patterns. The result would become a series of 'light paintings' dramatically accenting and emphasizing the surrounding architecture," said Paul Arthur Pohl, Product Manager for Visa Lighting Corporation.

Everyone involved in the project was so impressed with the results that Visa immediately proceeded to develop a standard product family around the concept. "In addition to the fixture and light patterns originally developed for the Atlanta installation, Visa created three other housing designs, each with its own unique decorative light pattern,” said Pohl. “The LightShower family of products was released to market in September 2000 and has been met with great success.”

As illustrated by the genesis of the LightShower product, the company specializes in meeting the individual needs of designers. "In addition to our standard LightShower models, Visa specializes in modifying products to meet specific applications," said Pohl. "For example, the luminous opening on the front of the fixture can be custom cut to reproduce a company logo, or any other desired custom pattern. And the white acrylic panel behind the opening on the front of the fixture can be replaced with a colored acrylic panel."

Greater Atlanta Christian School Fine Arts Center in Norcross, Georgia, showcases a new lighting fixture which nicely accentuates the design of the building. The LightShower line of products from Visa Lighting creates an interesting starburst of lighting patterns.

The truly distinct decorative light patterns are also interchangeable, which allows for great flexibility when adapting LightShower to serve and accentuate many specific surroundings. The product can also be used indoors, creating additional design possibilities for visually unifying the interior and exterior design at any location. "The fixtures themselves are relatively innocuous with subtle geometric detailing that augments the light output pattern. The ability for this product line to create radically different presentations between day and night is part of its beauty," said Douglas S. Schaefer, Director of Design for Visa Lighting Corporation. "The light effect allows even mundane applications to utilize the element of light as art, painting surfaces with texture, color and larger than life pattern." LASN