Michelin-Starred Aurora, Explored Before You Arrive

Introduction

On 14 October 2026, the inaugural MICHELIN Guide South Australia awarded one star to Aurora, the restaurant on the ground floor of ILA (Immersive Light and Art) in Light Square, Adelaide. It is one of 11 starred restaurants in the state, in the first Michelin guide to cover Australia. The star belongs to the kitchen and the team. Our part is what a diner sees before they ever walk through the door.

1. A venue built to be seen

ILA is a 150-year-old former tobacco factory, now a not-for-profit home for light and digital art, with Aurora on the ground floor and gallery, The Lab, and event spaces throughout. Its rooms change constantly: an exhibition one week, a seated dinner the next. That makes it hard to capture in a single photo, and exactly the kind of space a 3D tour is built for.

2. The capture

In June 2024, after a production meeting to plan the order of the scan, ABM visual captured the whole of ILA, inside and out, from the car parks to the rear access. We then captured individual spaces set for the events ILA hosts: weddings, conferences, art exhibitions, and cocktail functions. Everything the venue offers was digitised as 3D tours that can be shared anywhere in the world, followed by a handover and training session for the ILA team. Every tour includes a measurement tool, so event planners can check dimensions without a site visit.

3. Floor plans for every space

ILA then commissioned labelled floor plans from the scans, in 2D and 3D, for seven spaces: the ground floor, Aurora, The Lab, The Lab Garden, The Light Room Gallery, The Light Room Studio, and the Light Room Bar. Each plan shows room names and dimensions, giving the events team an accurate layout to send with every enquiry.

4. One capture, used by the creative team

The same scan serves ILA’s artists as well as its events team. When Creative Director Melissa Lee asked for file outputs to pre-visualise new work, the existing capture already held them: a 3D mesh (OBJ) and point cloud (XYZ) of the Studio, with E57, CAD, and BIM files also available. Exhibitions can be planned against the room’s real geometry before anything is installed.

5. Keeping it current

Venues change, and an out-of-date tour sets the wrong expectation. In October 2025 we returned to recapture the refreshed spaces: Aurora after a new LED screen was installed, Aurora dressed as a cocktail space, and The Studio.

6. On Google, where diners already look

In November 2025 we published the new tours to Google Street View across ILA’s three Google Business Profiles: the ground floor on Aurora’s, Level 1 on ILA’s, and The Lab on its own. Anyone who finds Aurora on Google Maps can step inside the dining room before they book.

7. Why it matters now

Michelin recognition draws diners who plan from interstate and overseas, often booking weeks ahead for a room they have never seen. For many of them, the Google listing is the first look inside. Aurora’s was ready before the announcement.

Final Thought

Congratulations to everyone at Aurora and ILA. A star is earned in the kitchen and on the floor, not online. But when the world comes looking, it helps to have the doors already open.

Explore Aurora.