Panasonic Lights Up Karrinyup Shopping Centre

Back in the 1970s and into the 1980s, Karrinyup Shopping Centre was one of a handful of growing, suburban shopping centres that were challenging the commercial dominance of the Perth CBD. KSC has been around a long time, and over the decades it’s constantly expanded and evolved to keep pace with the spate of shopping precincts that have since sprouted across the Perth metropolitan area — competition is fierce. In 2018, the company behind the centre, AMP Capital, decided on a major redevelopment with a price tag of AU$800 million which would effectively double the size of the centre and bring the retailers up to almost 300 different outlets. The end result was completed in October 2021. It included an entertainment and dining precinct called The West Deck. Here, shoppers can enjoy a wide variety of food, access to a large cinema complex, and a landscaped, relaxing atmosphere. The West Deck is a feature of the centre, and in the evenings a clever installation of Panasonic projectors lights up the building’s exterior facade into a vibrant and engaging display along with full audio, telling stories of local history, and indigenous culture and legends.

Lux Events is one of Western Australia’s largest event management and production companies specialising in creating spectacular audio/visual displays for corporate and public events. Originally, KSC was looking to hire projection from Lux for use during special events, but that brief was soon changed to a permanent installation so the video content could become a permanent attraction. Of course, it also impacted the approach of Lux Events to the project and threw up some interesting challenges. MD David Trapp explains, “At first, the development’s project management team were consulting with an eastern states company and were considering either a lighting or a projection solution. We were able to demonstrate the advantages of working with a local integrator, and we managed to convince them of the appeal of projection as a story-telling medium.”