Architectural lighting, art and color-changing LEDs

Artist uses LEDs for architectural expression New-media artist James Clar is using LED technology in a number of high-profile projects. Clar's award-winning 3D Display Cube, a freestanding matrix of 1,000 individually controllable LEDs, can create a low-resolution, three-dimensional television.

Energy Mesh

Fully interactive, it can connect to a camera or soundboard for live video and audio, and allow designers to create 3D animations instantaneously without needing to write a computer program.

His most ambitious work will be built in Barcelona, Spain in 2008 with the construction of the Habitat Hotel, designed by Enric Ruiz of Cloud 9 Architecture.

Clar designed the "energy mesh" that will wrap around the building. Made of 500 tri-color LEDs, during the day the individual nodes will collect energy from sunlight.

At night, the mesh will glow in specific color schemes and brightness determined by imbedded photosensors that gauge the amount of sunlight amplitude collected, which will change the building's glow according to seasons and weather.

For the full story, see the AFP article.

Tri-O-Light brightens UK cinema

Tri-O-Light cinema project Tri-O-Light has recently installed LED lighting in a cinema in the UK. This installation is the entrance to a 1930’s Art Deco cinema now converted to a theatre & conference centre in Northampton, England. The secondary access to the venue was transformed into a visually arresting and welcoming entrance that can compete with the grandeur of the original theatre vestibule, now used by a church.

For this project, 305 m of 24V, 5 x 8mm white-colored LED Light Strip was used. The key feature of the entrance (see photo) is the barrel vaulted roof, simply constructed of "triplewall" polycarbonate sheet with the LED Light Strip inserted within the cavities of the sheets.

This means that the lights are perfectly aligned with the curvature of the roof and are flush with the surface, creating a starry sky effect. The spacing between the LEDs was 100 mm.

White LED text in World Trade Center skyscraper

An LED-based art installation will memorialize the events of September 11, 2001 in the lobby of 7 World Trade Center, a new skyscraper which is the first to have been built at ground zero in Lower Manhattan, New York.

7 World Trade Center The lobby features a 65-foot-wide, 14-foot-high wall containing a five-foot-high band of "text" made up of white LEDs threaded on metal ribbons.

Thousands of moving words of text have been programmed by the artist, Jenny Holzer, to evoke the history of New York. The $700 million building is not scheduled to open until mid-May, although the artwork is already being tweaked.

For the full story, see the NY Times article (subscription required).

Lightmoves adds color to leisure facilities

The Palace Australia-based Lightmoves combined color-changing metal halide fixtures and thirty-eight Digilin Taipan RGB LEDs to achieve a high-visibility color-wash on the exterior wall of The Palace in Bay Road, Brighton, home to Brighton Bay Cinemas. Click here for full details.

Kingpin bar The same company also developed the Melbourne Central leisure complex, and used Osram Linearlight LED strips to highlight the four bars. White strips are used to uplight all bottle displays, while green strips are used around the front of the Kingpin bar. For the main Barcode bar, a combination of blue and red Linearlight LED strips dim in and out to create the a two-color changing effect. Click here for full details.