Featured Project: Lighting Up the Pyramid

The Denver Botanic Gardens collaborated with Japan-based Panasonic to craft a unique and immersive experience for the gardens’ annual winter event, Blossoms of Light.

A holiday tradition for the tens of thousands of visitors that come to the gardens each winter, the Blossoms of Light turns the 24 acres of the public botanical garden into a “winter wonderland of light.” Guests stroll the narrow pathways of the grounds among the frosted, dormant gardens as brightly lit holiday lights shine and carolers provide a festive backdrop.

This past season, Gavin Culbertson, technical product manager for the gardens, decided to add a new twist. He and his team turned to the facility’s Science Pyramid as the newest feature to integrate into the display.

The Science Pyramid is a 5,258-square-foot, 16-sided structure that gives the effect of a dynamic, spiraling movement to those inside as the ceiling rises to its pyramid shape.

Culbertson began looking into laser projectors to project lights into the Science Pyramid from the outside.

“We weren’t in favor of one company versus another, though that quickly changed once we began testing the projectors capabilities,” says Culbertson. “Once we saw what the Panasonic PT-RZ12KU 3-Chip DLP SOLID SHINE laser projector was able to deliver, the decision was clear. The entire team at the Gardens was blown away by the contrast ratio and specs of the SOLID SHINE laser-it was unlike anything we had seen before. Panasonic’s projectors displayed clear, crisp images-far better than any others that we explored.”