Green Wall at Snow Hill Station
BIRMINGHAM
The Green Wall at Birmingham, England’s Snow Hill Station is a mammoth structure that merges nature, architecture – and now, beautiful LED lighting. The impressive junction, which hides a multi-story car park and provides a scenic backdrop for the city’s future railroad network, measures 220m x 7m (720ft x 23ft) and showcases 604 m2 (almost 2000 ft2) of plants, making it the largest “living wall” in Europe. To add organic movement and vivid illumination to the living landmark, MBLD, the project’s lighting designers and C A Sothers, the installation team, turned to Architainment Lighting to supply the elegant white light LED fixtures. MBLD knew immediately that they were looking for an all-LED lighting system, which would offer easy controllability and low energy consumption, all while breathing life into their dynamic concept with long lasting, high quality fixtures.
The primary design objective of the project was to bring out the unique perforated ripple texture of the panels that run the length of the wall. To highlight the textured panels, the C A Sothers team installed 1ft and 2ft iW Graze Powercore (now specified with iW Graze MX Powercore) and iW Burst Compact Powercore fixtures, placing them in the gully spanning the base of the wall. The comprehensive system, controlled by a Philips Color Kinetics iPlayer 3 DMX lighting controller, creates a shifting, glowing effect on the panels, enveloping the wall in alternating shades of warm and cool white light – a stunning complement to the pervasive greenery. However, the team, intent on illuminating the entire wall, didn’t stop there. Architainment also supplied iW Graze Powercore fixtures that were mounted approximately a foot from the back side of the wall, highlighting the sweep of flora that faces a public walkway and enabling a full-bodied experience of the living structure. MBLD achieved winners’ status at the 2014 Lighting Design Awards in the Exterior Lighting category for this project.
