Peru’s Estadio Nacional

Since bursting onto the market, LEDs have come on leaps and bounds both in terms of how advanced the tech is, and how people are using it.

A big reason for this is because of just how versatile LED lights are – they use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs, last up to 50,000 hours, and can display multiple colours without the need for filters. But the setup at the Estadio Nacional in Peru has even blown us away.

By day it’s a seemingly normal sports stadium. The home of the Peruvian national football team is an architectural feat in its own right, but a normal stadium nonetheless.

By night however, its outer facade literally comes alive!

Built by Cinimod Studio and Peruvian LED lights company Arquileds in celebration of President Alan Garcia’s presidency, the stadium lights up in different colours depending on the mood of the fans inside.

The noise they make is captured by a state of the art sound-level receiver array, suspended high above the stadium. The high tech control system is able to reflect the mood of up to 45,000 people at any one time. This data is then used to programme the LEDs.

The exterior of the stadium has been fitted with 1,450 LED tubes made of polycarbonate, which has been integrated into the actual grid-work on the stadium itself. These are also equipped with Traxon wall floodlights.

Both sets of lights are connected to a DMX micro server, which handles the commands sent by the software.

A further 165 luminaires are used to directly light up the roof.

The new lighting is part of a wider improvement program to the site, with costs estimated at around $52 million for the entire project.

There are 4 moods that the system can pick up on – boredom, disappointment, tension and excitement, with the design finished in such a way that the lights resemble flames, matching the contours of the stadium’s structure.

As the crowd’s mood reaches fever pitch, so too does the exterior facades colourful display, changing from an amorphous blob into a more complex series of intricate patterns, depending on the crowd’s mood.

As a result, the entire city can behold the spectacle of the ebb and flow of the crowd, and the stadium more than compliments the city’s passion for football.

A well fought victory for LEDs again!