Source: ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING Magazine Publication date: June 1, 2007 By C.C.

Sullivan Today, faade lighting design strategies seem to follow two diverging paths: One emulates the work of naturethe moon and the sunwhile the other embraces the possibilities of latter-day technology. For any given project, a lighting designer tends to operate with either a naturalist or a technologist mindset, though the approaches can overlap considerably. In the best cases, each hopes to imbue the building with not merely skilled illumination, but a higher level of meaning. Witness the proliferation of media faadesthe often pixilated, animated billboards glowing brightly in many cities around the world. They range from the exuberant, as at Skidmore, Owings & Merrills supergraphic Jianianhua Center in Chongqing, China, to the ethereal, such as Herzog & de Meurons soft rhomboid checkerboard on Allianz Arena. These examples, and more like them, use faade lighting not merely to illuminate or to advertise, but to convey information of interest to the entire communityand to describe goings-on within the buildings. For Herzog and de Meuron, the stadiums puffy exterior required a certain differentiation that would reflect the interior of the stadium on the outside. Thats why the fabric enclosure glows blue for one soccer team and red for another. At Jianianhua Center, the billboards promote not a product, but state holidays. Many lighting designers have become wary of using dynamic light just for aesthetics, like a sort of electronic wallpaper. You have to have a reason for it. It needs to convey a message, argues Mark Hensman, the British lighting designer whose London-based firm Equation Lighting

Design created the scheme for Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, England, on which colorchanging projectors tell the port towns residents the level of the tide or, on foul-weather days, wind speed. The permanent art installation Weather Patterns at the York Art Gallery in England takes the notion a step further, examining the effects humans have on the environmentnamely, global climate change. Ornate, spiral-shaped low-resolution displays are framed within the windows of the museums 1879 Italian Renaissance-style building. Otherwise, the faade lighting is unremarkable; surface-mounted floodlights cast long shadows upward from the capitals and arches, exaggerating the buildings proportions. Master lighting designer Howard Brandston set the standard with his highly regarded naturalistic approach to faade lighting, which first recreates the cool glow of a full moon on important civic structures. Then architectural features are carefully highlighted to coax warm interior illumination out of windows and archways. Such treatments for the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s and the Statue of Liberty in 1986 influenced a generation of lighting designers. One such acolyte, New York-based lighting designer Randy Sabedra, invoked Brandstons mantra at the May 2007 relighting ceremony for New York Citys Custom House, which Sabedra conceived. Just as with the technologist approach, current design standards and cutting-edge fixtures and lamps are critical for successful naturalist lighting, Sabedra notes as is depth of meaning for every design decision made. But the overriding message is far simpler and subtler than what most electronic billboards aim to say. Incorporate the play of light as seen in nature, says Sabedra. Buildings have activity inside. The faade lighting should let that come outward.