Advanced lighting control technology from Pharos Architectural Controls has been used to illuminate the façade of the Parliament of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, delivering a flexible and considered solution for one of the city’s most important heritage buildings. The project replaces an ageing sodium vapour floodlighting scheme with a more refined approach that reveals the texture and detail of the sandstone architecture.
Completed in early 2026, the project marks the culmination of a long development process that began in 2014, when FPOV was first commissioned by the Victorian Government to explore an illuminated treatment for the building. Dating back to 1888, the Parliament of Victoria occupies a prominent position at the northern end of Melbourne’s CBD. The brief called for a lighting solution that would respect the building’s heritage while presenting its architecture in a more natural light.
The previous scheme relied on sodium vapour floodlights mounted at a shallow angle, producing an even wash of light that flattened the façade and masked much of its detail. The strong colour cast of the source also altered the appearance of the sandstone, reducing the clarity of the building at night.
The new design set out to correct this by presenting the building more faithfully, while keeping the installation discreet and visually unobtrusive. It also needed to reduce maintenance demands, improve efficiency, and allow the façade to be lit in neutral white for everyday use, with the option of colour for civic occasions.
Over the course of the project, the design was refined through a number of external and technical challenges, including changes in government, budget adjustments, pandemic-related testing delays and advances in LED technology. As a result, the specification was reviewed several times to ensure the final system remained robust and future ready.
At the core of the installation are two Pharos Designer LPC controllers providing a total of four universes of DMX. Two 8-inch Pharos Designer TPS touchscreens allow authorised users to manage scene selection and colour changes when required. The system is connected to Pharos Cloud for simple, secure remote management and control. Integration with Dynalite is also used for power management, helping the system operate efficiently within the wider building infrastructure.
The result is a façade lighting scheme that brings greater subtlety and control to the presentation of the Parliament building, revealing its material qualities more clearly while replacing a dated and overbearing approach to illumination.
Christopher Page, Associate at FPOV, said, “Working with Pharos allowed us to deliver a reliable control platform with the flexibility and ease of use needed to support both daily operation and longer-term adaptation of the scheme.”
Tony Symms, Regional Manager for Asia Pacific at Pharos, added, “This project demonstrates how intelligent control can support the sensitive illumination of heritage architecture. The system combines reliability and flexibility, ensuring the façade can be presented consistently while still allowing for moments of variation.”
The project demonstrates how advanced control technology can help heritage buildings balance preservation with performance, delivering lighting schemes that are both practical to operate and sensitive to architectural character.
