LED Testing & Application  

Sticky Situation

Glowing light sticks work the angles in Dublin’s Grand Canal Square

BY PAUL TARRICONE

When city planners in Dublin, Ireland, roll out the red carpet, they go all the way—from a dockside theater all the way to the waterfront. Of course it wouldn’t be Ireland without a green carpet, as well.
  The two “carpets” (which are not fabric but actually part of the pavement and landscape) along with more than two dozen “light sticks” accentuate Grand Canal Square—a 10,000-sq meter public space in Dublin’s Docklands completed in late 2007. Flanking the space on its landward side are the Grand Canal Theatre and an upscale hotel, in addition to shops and restaurants at the ground-floor level. “The fact that it opens on to a large non-tidal body of water makes it a unique space in Dublin,” says John McLaughlin, director of architecture with the Docklands Authority. “Such spaces have traditionally only occurred in Mediterranean cities like Trieste and Venice.”
  The Docklands Authority selected American landscape architect Martha Schwartz, Boston, to design the space. She developed a colorful criss-cross architectural scheme to help bring some “dynamism” to the square. One of the most striking design elements is the red carpet crossed by a lush green carpet of paving with lawns and vegetation. The red carpet is constructed of a bright red resin/glass material with embedded red LED lines. The green carpet of polygon-shaped planters offers ample seating and connects the hotel to an office development across the square. The planters feature marsh vegetation to soften the space and to act as a reminder of the historic wetland nature of the site. Around each planter is a continuous green LED luminaire, recessed into the face of the planter just above ground level and lighting outwards to the ground plane.
  The square is also interlaced with granite-paved paths that allow movement across it in any direction, while still allowing for large-scale festivals and performances.

STANDING TALL
   Covering the red carpet are 30 red, glowing, angled light sticks, each 10 meters high. “The idea of having sticks at angles was already part of the landscape concept from Martha Schwartz, but their design had not considered illuminating them. We developed this into something much more complex,” says lighting designer Iain Ruxton of Speirs and Major Associates, London.
   Some of the sticks are perpendicular to the pavement; others are at an angle, reinforcing the asymmetrical, criss-cross pattern of the pavement. The bottom part of each stick is red-painted steel. The illuminated section above is a translucent red plastic column, which varies in length from 5 to 8 meters, with red LEDs (from OSRAM) inside it.
   While the sticks do not change colors, “they are in fact kinetic. They are able to twinkle and perform chases. Additionally, some of the columns have sensors, and passing pedestrians can sometimes trigger LED Testing & Application different effects,” says Ruxton. “Illumination on the ground plane varies with the kineticism of the sticks,” making this project “as much a piece of art as it is a piece of street lighting.”

September 09