Officially opened in March 2025, the WE-EF headquarters and Lightbox in Braeside, Australia set a new global benchmark for experiential lighting environments. More than just a demonstration space, the Lightbox represents a lighting-first ecosystem — one that blends immersive storytelling, stakeholder education, and real-world technical application.

At the heart of this transformative space lies Casambi’s wireless control platform, the digital infrastructure that enables every moment of the journey to unfold with precision, flexibility and intention. Whether it’s adjusting light levels to simulate wildlife-safe coastal lighting or shifting colour temperatures in sync with a narrated story arc, Casambi empowers WE-EF to turn technical education into powerful, visceral experience.

WE-EF’s Vision

WE-EF’s was bold: To create a lighting-led destination that demonstrates best practice, supports informed lighting decisions, and empowers specifiers, designers, engineers, landscape architects and councils to experience light in real-time. The brief called for an immersive simulation space (the Lightbox), showcasing WE-EF’s exterior lighting range through curated real-world applications, backed by a fully operational, sustainably lit headquarters, wherein which visitors can see lighting in real use, participate in luminaire assembly and engage in technical training.

To meet this vision, Casambi became essential — delivering intuitive control, seamless adaptability, and future-proof integration across both spaces.

The Immersive Journey – Enabled by Casambi

Each group that enters the Lightbox is taken on a sensory-rich journey through the evolution, fundamentals, and future of outdoor lighting. The experience is carefully choreographed, with Casambi scenes triggered throughout to adapt lighting output, distribution, and colour temperature in real time.

The Lightbox is a fully indoor simulation centre Visitors are taken on a customisable journey that includes: 

  • Opening Scene: A sculptural flame softly glows before erupting into colour GOBO projection. An audio narration tells the story of the origins of light at night starting when mankind first harnessed fire, all the way to the mastery of artificial light at night and the control we can now delivery with WE-EF precision optics. Casambi-controlled dimming and colour transitions help mirror this emotional journey.
  • Lighting Fundamentals: From a mezzanine viewing platform looking over the showroom from height, visitors view bright colour swatches on the floor under luminaires with different CRIs, see colour temperature comparisons, needing to interactively guess the CCT shown (from 5000k through to PC Amber), and experience effect of optical control viewing the footprint of each different lighting distribution in the WE-EF range. Practical hands on opportunities are provided to understand the peak angle of intensity and the impact of back light shields; with Casambi enabling smooth and easy transitioning from scene to scene. 
  • Street & Area Lighting: Full pole layouts that are mounted on a moveable dolly, show PP/PR category alignment, glare mitigation, managing backlight spill and optic performance. Casambi control allows grouped luminaires to be dimmed or brightened to illustrate key points in AS/NZS 1158.
  • Wildlife Zone: Featuring a sandy mural beach scene with 3D printed turtle hatchlings and penguins, this scene compares 2200K, 2700K, 3000K and PC Amber colour temperatures in context, talking to the need to avoid blue light in areas of wildlife sensitivity, for example, along coastlines where turtle hatchlings can mistake cool colour temperature lights for the moon and become disoriented. Thus, we explore options such as Wild-Light – demonstrating the possibility to have two different colour temperatures within one luminaire. Casambi allows transitions to be soft or sudden depending on audience, with live dimming to illustrate the ecological impact of CCT and intensity.
  • GOBO Projection: Casambi allows precise control over GOBO luminaires placed across sculptures, façades, murals and pathways – showing how creativity and precision can coexist.
  • Pathway & Inground Lighting: Uplights are demonstrated only where appropriate, dimmed or gimballed to show directional control. Casambi enables individual and grouped control, including motion-activated responses.
  • Finale: Our beach art mural transitions from day to night, into a starlit scene complete with moon and aurora, via GOBO projection. Casambi scenes switch to deep dimming and zero upward light – highlighting compliance with Dark Sky principles.

All scenes are controlled wirelessly via Casambi, allowing real-time dimming, colour temperature shifts, distribution changes and adaptive output. The experience is tailored for each group – councils, engineers, specifiers – ensuring technical relevance and emotional impact. Visitors leave with a redefined understanding of what light can do. 

Beyond the Lightbox – Casambi Across the Site

Casambi’s influence extends well beyond the simulation centre. It provides facility-wide wireless control at the WE-EF HQ, ensuring smart, efficient, and responsive lighting performance:

  • Outdoor & Façade Lighting: Casambi controls entryway and car park illumination, with scheduling and energy-saving dimming profiles.
  • Warehouse Operations: Motion-based response and time scheduling ensure optimal working conditions with reduced consumption.
  • Cloud-Based Monitoring: Enables data insights for ongoing efficiency improvements and Green Star benchmarking.

Together, these systems deliver a 35% energy reduction below NCC J6 compliance — a tangible demonstration of how Casambi supports decarbonisation and certification goals.

More Than a Showroom – A Platform for the Future

Casambi’s role in the WE-EF Lightbox is more than just control. It enables lighting to be more than functional: it becomes adaptive, emotional, educational.

Through Casambi’s open ecosystem, wireless flexibility, and robust scene control, WE-EF has created an environment that breaks boundaries — combining precision engineering with intuitive interaction and translating complex lighting principles into memorable experiences.

The Lightbox doesn’t just showcase light. It reshapes the way we think about it.
It’s a statement of purpose, where every lumen has meaning, every moment is programmable, and every visitor walks away rethinking what light can do.

Visitor Feedback

“The new facility & especially the Lightbox are truly world-class. It will be a powerful sales and education tool to further grow the WE-EF brand and reputation.”
— Mark Kirkham MIES NZCE (Electrical), National Product Manager, MHL NZ

“We were highly impressed with the state-of-the-art setup. The Lightbox is a super impressive space.”
— Andrew Drowley, Director, H.I. Lighting

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