Media Student Architecture & Design Award 2018
Third Award | Category: Cultural
Architect: Amarnath Raghunathan
Country: INDIA
EXPERIENCING LIGHT
This is a design through which people are going to experience
different dimensions of light as a
continuous travel with regular breakpoints. So before going into the
dimensions, what is light? Something that enables our vision? Visible light or
colours?
Okay so let us consider a prisoner who is kept inside a dark
room for a week with mechanical ventilation.. he comes out..gets the sunlight.
His eyes alone doesn’t feel the sudden light, his body will feel the light.
That’s why light is not just visible light or colours, it is sensory.. it is
far beyond our imaginative perceptions. Thus, the first dimension is that we
are ignorant and have a myopic view on light, maybe as we don’t get the time to
celebrate light or as we know light won’t die before we die. So celebrating
light is the first dimension. When we will experience something, is in its
absence, which is darkness, the second dimension. The third dimension is the
dark side of light which is the over exploitation of light (a.k.a) Light
Pollution. I see this as the dark side of light as this wrong use/overuse of
light and its pollution causes a huge amount of damage to us and our ecosystem.
Some are the damages done to the nocturnal birds, sea turtles, nocturnal
reptiles, mammals, and us humans. There are statistics that says in one night
50,000 birds died clashing on a high rise building with lights bright as moon
and stars as that is what they use for navigation in the night. Likewise 10,000
birds on a building in Ontario in 1981. Every year 100million birds die just
because of building collision. It’s the same worst case for sea turtles and all
other nocturnal species. The only affected species which are not nocturnal are
humans. Due to the loss of true darkness, we are prone to prostate cancer and
hormonal imbalance problems. So my
design will take the people through an experience of all the three dimensions
of light.
[Before getting into the design, let me show you the case
studies and inference of the research I have done for understanding the play of
light and architecture. Please find them attached in the Google drive link]
Design Part
The zoning line of my design experience starts with the dark
side of light, absence of light and then celebration of light leading to
relaxing spaces. The space also has an open exhibition space for light artists
to put their installations in there and an Open air theatre for entertainment
shows to happen along with a food court.
Dark side of light
Before taking the users into the absence of light, they should
be prepared gradually to get into a pitch dark space. This gradual travel will
include the experience of the dark side of light or light pollution.
1. Dark towers – This is the tower of real darkness. This
space will be active at both day and night.
At daytime, the tower is the first step towards darkness as there’s
not going to be any extra light other than the pores which appear like
stars. A star gazing experience.
At nighttime, the tower will show the difference between the
real darkness and the darkness now. When the pores of the tower are glowing
inside to the user’s eye due to the light pollution outside the tower people
will think how this happens..
This tower leads to the next space underground which is
"the flicker" through a staircase as well as a ramp in 1:12 ratio to
the basement.
2. The flicker - The roof of the basement which is the floor
of the pathway at ground level will have pores covered with glass on it. The
underground space will have fog machine hidden which creates a foggy atmosphere
enabling people to be able to see the light rays falling through the pores.
When people walk on the pathway above to reach the food court or oat, they step
on the pores which create a beautiful flickering effect in the basement
passage. At nighttime, the light sensors located along with the glass cover
turns off when the people step on the pores.
3. The shy lights - Now the stairs/ramp we climbed down will rise
as a ramp in the slope of 1:12 for comfort. This space will have light fixtures
on its ceiling which will swing left to right to left adding up a spookiness to
the travel before reaching the dark space and leads to the next space called
"Your diminishing stars".
4. Your diminishing
stars - This space will have
stars on both the walls of the pathway which will diminish as we walk through
and climb up the slope. The roof will be of mirror fully for an infinite effect
of stars. I metaphorically convey that, " As we climb up in our life, we
are letting the stars to diminish from our eyesight " This space reaches
to the next space on the ground level which is pitch dark.
Absence of light
5. Void of light - This space is pitch dark and lightless, but..
you see a ray of light at a distant which makes you move towards it. The user
goes towards the ray of light and touches it, but it’s not the ray of light but
a mirror which is reflecting the light from elsewhere. The user moves forward
with this hand on the wall for support. As he walks he feels a rough stone
texture on the wall giving an earthy feeling. Basically this space is a void of
light on earth which has everything other than light. As the user moves towards
the next ray of light, he hears some natural sounds ascending and tries to
touch the ray and realizes that this one is also an illusion . As he continues,
the same happens but the ray of the light appears stronger. Then he feels an
ascending natural fragrance adding up to the experience. This time he sees a
more vibrant ray of light, walks towards it and catches it like he has achieved
something or like he has got light after a struggle. The user cannot be taken
to the bright outside suddenly from the darkness, thus, the absence pathway
connects to a passage called blink out
which has light and dark meddling in and out, like how it does when we blink
our eyes while we are exposed to light after a longtime of darkness. This space
leads us to the outside gradually with lots of green.
Celebration of light
6. The Rays - This space is a pyramidal form having pores
on its surface in a random manner. Its sharp side is aligned to the north as
the sun moves from east to south to west theoretically. Each side of the rays
space has a different coloured glass covering the pores which will be intense
at varying times. The space is separated into two parts, one being the movement
space and other being the interactive space. People who keep moving will flow
through the movement pathway, and the ones who wants to stand there and
experience more will use the interactive space. This space leads to a glass
passage which will maintain the environmental conditions as same as inside the
rays space but disconnects the user from the surprise emotion.
Form justification :
Its sharp side is aligned to the north as the sun moves from
east to south to west theoretically. The pyramid having 3 faces creates
distinct experiences when the sun is at each direction of its faces at
different time periods.
The slanted walls of the pyramid create an effect as if they’re
bent towards the user to create these light rays.
7. The Shadows - We get into this space normally from the
glass passage to a pathway which will be foggy and changing colours while we
walk through it, is the first level of surprise. Then this leads us to the
shadows space which is a bigger surprise. The colours we walked through seem to
have exploded into our shadows of the respective colours in this space.
(Primary experience and secondary experience). This space then leads to a
passage which has random slits on it.
8. The light slits - This space shows us how light passes through
a structure by a slit opening and as well as it creates a dynamic effect.. the
slits throw a solid ray of light when the sun is intense and creates a glow
when the sun isn’t. This space is in a zig zag manner so as to capture all the
dynamism of the sun. This leads to an open landscape which is open for any
artist or architect to put up their own exhibition or light art installation..
if something is put up people will experience that and then continue onto to the
mirror lights..
9. The Mirror lights - This space has mirrors on the ceiling walls
and partially on the floor in a parametric pattern. The lights reflect on these
mirrors and show the space as infinite destination but in a small box. The
parametric pattern of mirror places on the floor distorts the reflections in
human eye view... which creates confusion for people.. after the light slits
the user goes out for a break.. when he/she returns to the experience journey
he sees something totally contrasting to what he saw till then which creates confusion..
this Also acts as a precontext for the next space... this space then leads to a
passage way in which lights guide you through after the confusion created by
light..
10. The Guiding
lights- This space has pores
on the wall in an angular position which casts rays of light away from us in
forward direction which guides us. Before seeing these rays there is a portion
called light tubes area which acts as a visual obstruction for the guiding
lights.. this is the concept of hide and reveal before a surprise and
this is the third type of surprise I have explored. The passageway
rises in slope by 500mm at its mid turning and slopes down again which is
indicated by the guiding lights.
11. Water glow - Water and light have a great combination. This
space will have a small water body at the centre of the hemispherical dome with
a spotlight inside the water. This will scatter the light rays along with water
caustics on the curved wall of the space. This natural reflection creates a
sense of life in the space. Adding up to this static life, the glowing algae
growing in the water body creates a glow when the water is agitated by the user
which is also reflected on the curved wall. From this space we can see few
steps extruded from the floor slightly which will lead us to the outside...
12. The Water steps - These steps continue with the introduction of
water beneath it which creates a feeling as if the stones are floating on water
and as if the user is walking on it.. These steps connect to a tunnel which is
closed with only one opening which is the entryway.. As the user walks inside
it, the environment becomes darker while the stones and the water starts to
glow. The stones used are glowing stones and water glows because of the bioluminescent
algae being cultured in there..
13. The Mist Rainbow - Before going into this space there is a
colourful passage similar to that of the shadows precon. This takes the user
through the colour palette of vibgyor one by one in a foggy atmosphere and
leads to an open space with a fluid wall alone. The mist spikes and poles
present at its centre sprinkles water into fine droplets of mist which creates
a rainbow at certain angles..
(when the sun is behind the user and the viewing angle is at
40-42 deg. with the sun rays). This experience makes people to move in the
circular orbit in the find for a rainbow. This space then leads the user to the
next space called the prismatic maze through a passageway.
14. The Prismatic Maze
- This space starts
from the Mist rainbow space. Entering the pathway from there, the user sees the
pathway becoming foggy and red. The user gets into it with a visibility of 5m.
While walking through the red colour, the blue colour is the visible destination.
Reaching there, the user gets two options, left(blue pathway) and right (no
colour - dark). Those who try the dark one, return to the blue pathway and
continue walking left from the junction. Now they see pink colour as their
destination. They reach the next junction and they have three options this
time, left(yellow pathway), straight(pink pathway) and right(royal purple
pathway). As the combination of purple and pink are more attractive than
yellow, most of the users will tend to go straight or right. But sadly it’s a
trap, both the passages are looped. They have no choice other than yellow now
and the users will be alert hereafter. While walking through the yellow passage,
they see red again. They get slightly confused because of the repeated red
colour light as they are in a state to doubt everything. They keep walking and
get into the red colour light pathway. The users again see the same blue colour
light after red. As things appears to be repeating, the users believe it’s a
trap again and gets ready for another loop trap but the twist in the story is
they end up in a calm retrospective space.
15. The Retrospective
- This space is the
final space of the experience. It is the biggest space in diameter compared to
all other experience spaces in the design. This is to create an uncertain
feeling in the user’s mind. After all the light experience spaces right from
the dark side to the celebration through absence, when the user is left into a
calm space which has nothing other than a horizon view like how the earth will
be seen from the outer space, the experience acts as a retrospective medium for
the users. The space is also dynamic as the colours of the horizon keeps changing
like how the earth has different colours of light created. The floor slope in
the ratio of 1:12 which creates the feeling of the earth’s curve.
We end the experience
of light here but not the celebration, light will be celebrated always by its
people. Let us all understand as light lost its importance amongst us, we lost
our true darkness..continued by our health, stars, millions of nocturnal
species and the nocturnal life of the existing species. Let’s stop the
exploitation of light and celebrate it in a sensible way. Thank you.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
·
Before the experience starts, the users will
be given an option at the ticket counter to whether start the travel from
either the dark side of light or the celebration of light(skipping the pitch
dark spaces for those who fear of it).
·
All the doors of the experience spaces open/close
automatically with sensors.
·
Spaces that are air-conditioned have floor
concealed ac units with false flooring to avoid the visual disturbance in the
experience.
·
No façade lighting is used in this project so
as not to contribute to devastating light pollution.
·
No street lights are used for the same reason.
As an alternative, light fixtures which will have sensors to switch on/off with
human activity will be installed on the ground in a manner that the light
doesn’t scatter 180deg. and add up to the light pollution.
·
For a sense of approach and bound, the
pavement will be built with glowing stones which absorbs natural light in the
daytime and glows in the nighttime.
·
In places of darkness such as the absence of
light and the walls and roof of retrospective, Vantablack paint is used which
will absorb all the light emitted in that space and doesn’t reflect it to the
human eye. This doesn’t reveal the form definition to the human eye and makes
the concentrate on the experience alone with a surprise feeling.
·
Some videos taken live with the physical model
are attached along with this mail. I have used incense sticks(agarbathi) for
fog(for the light rays to be visible) and captured the video with a mobile
phone from its door hole. Please check that.
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