Berlin By The Sea Berlin By The Sea
Trends in Lighting caught up with the BuroHappold Engineering Design team in Berlin who support local artists through collaboration.  This gives the designers the... Berlin By The Sea

Trends in Lighting caught up with the BuroHappold Engineering Design team in Berlin who support local artists through collaboration.  This gives the designers the opportunity to experiment and explore the possibilities of light.  The Berlin team have most recently worked with artist Monika Goetz to  bring her installation ‘Friedrichshain by the Sea’ to life.

Monika created the art installation at the Alte Feuerwache (old fire station) in Friedrichshain, Berlin, out of reused wine and champagne bottles. She arranged the bottles and the colours between the arches to form a water landscape.  The artist explains: “It is clear that Friedrichshain is not by the sea. The title of the work refers to the increasing environmental pollution and ‘plays’ with the idea of what would happen if the water levels were to rise so high that Friedrichshain was by the sea.”

Collaborating with Monika on the lighting for the installation gave the lighting designers the freedom to experiment with light and reveal different aspects of the piece, its shape and materials. The installation is particularly interesting as it combines different types of lighting (diffused and focused) and different colours (warm and neutral) in order to reveal the colour and the glossy surface of the glass bottles.

As well as lighting the installation, the Lighting Team also altered the exhibition room lighting to suit the artist’s design intent.  As the visitors moved around the room, their attention was drawn to several different aspects of the installation: the colour of the bottles, the glossiness of the glass, the projected colours on the floor, the shadows of the bottles projected into the exhibition room, and the density and transparency of the material viewed from different perspectives.  Projects like these centred around sustainability and experimentation provide lighting designers with a platform to develop and influence the future of lighting.

Photo credit: Burohappold Engineering

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