AAMI Park is Melbourne’s premier rectangular sports and entertainment venue. The 30,000-seat state-of-the-art stadium will be utilised for a range of domestic and international Rugby, Rugby League and Soccer matches. The facility also includes elite training facilities, a gymnasium, lap pool and office facilities.

AAMI Stadium features a distinctive cutting-edge Bioframe design with a geodesic dome roof which substantially covers the seating area. In addition to this the stadium features world class floodlighting which enables the stadium to be used for televised matches.

Thorn’s involvement with this project started back in October 2005 where we worked with NDY and Cox to deliver conceptual design for not only the sports lighting area but also all of the interior lighting ranging from downlights to linear fluorescent luminaires. In addition to this we supported NDY with technical information and products for the back and public areas. Furthermore we also assisted with technical support with regards to lighting standards and requirements.

The stadium features 344 Mundial floodlights in various beam distributions to meet exacting requirements of television broadcasting of international/national sports (2000lux on the vertical and 2600lux average on the horizontal). The decision to use the Mundial fitting was easy as the beam spread is exceptional and the variable lamp holder position enables choice of distribution. The Mundial provides high quality task illumination with the minor of glare, spill and upward waste lighting thus ensuring that ‘light pollution’ is kept to a bear minimum.

A critical element for the project was to develop a sports lighting system that blended with the desired architectural form of the stadium without compromising performance.  In this case it was important to ensure that the floodlighting delivered good uniformity and minimised glare and spillage from the floodlights, something we achieved by adhering to our PEC philosophy, use of a quality sports floodlighting Luminaire, good design values and standards.