Let’s Light The High Level Bridge Right
When I first saw Dave Mowat’s Pecha Kucha presentation in October 2012 I was totally on board with the idea of lighting up the High Level Bridge, as was basically everyone in the crowd at the time. It’s a good idea, to be sure, taking inspiration from many places around the world that have done the same. Council’s Executive Committee is running with the idea, directing EPCOR to come up with a design, meaning this might be a good idea that actually gets done in a short amount of time.
When that news broke though, I thought back to a tweet my friend Christian Whitty wrote back in December:
Every time a public space adds colour-changing LEDs, an angel loses its wings. #yeg
— Christian Whitty (@whittychristian) December 21, 2012
He also threw down three more tweets elaborating on his point last week. When I asked him a bit more about his view, he said colour changing LEDs reminded him of a screensaver. I find humour in the thought of the High Level Bridge acting as a giant screensaver for the entire river valley, and it’s true the look is a bit dated now. It was novel at first when multi-colour, highly colour-saturated LEDs were newly available on the market, but now anyone with $200 can buy a set of LED bulbs and have crazy colours in their own home (disclosure: I kind of want those).
It reminds me of those irritating blue LEDs that are impossible to focus on and that unfortunately adorn the base of the brand new EPCOR building, making it look like a Dell laptop. I like the rest of the building, but find those blue LEDs intolerable.
Similarly, I don’t want the new High Level Bridge lighting to have that dated colour-changing look before they’re even done being put up. An approach that I’ve heard before is having the lights change based on events, like how the Empire State Building does. If the Oilers are on a run for the Cup (haha) the lights could be copper and blue, like I’ve tried to show above. Green and gold on Eskimos days, a rainbow for the pride parade, you get the idea.
Here’s a crazy concept
A weird and unique idea that popped into my head: since the High Level is a one-way traffic bridge, install a series of proximity sensors to detect where vehicles are on the bridge, and have the lights follow the vehicles. A colourful southbound stream of traffic representing the movement of the city. What do you think? Any other fun ideas?
Photo of the High Level by Darren Kirby. Editing and GIF-ication by Mike Otto.
That is a pretty interesting idea. To be fair, however, how long until sound and motion activated LED’s are passe?
Just saw this on twitter, a proposal for San Francisco: http://vimeo.com/41574472
[...] A blog about Edmonton urban planning and design – written in plain English [...]
I’m a big fan of the more conceptual ideas like the one you said of lights representing the flow of traffic. One of my favourite spots (destined for destruction) in the city is underneath the Walterdale Bridge. Because of the grated surface, the moving vehicles play with the light as they cross the bridge. Coupled with the hum of the grate, this makes a typical bridge a little more experiential (you do have to dodge pigeon corpses though). If we bring this (relatively hidden) interplay between sound and visuals, we can make the city a more engaging place. The flow of traffic across a one-way bridge can be a really interesting visual of the way we move and the motion of the city. I’m all for that sort of representation on the High Level.
Sure, it is possible that sound and motion LEDs will be dated at a point (or even soon), but the LEDs that constantly cycle through the colour spectrum are already well past their expiry date. I mean, Churchill Square has had those (awful) colour changing cylinders for something like 8 years.
With that, can we tackle another huge issue we have in Edmonton: using construction and utilities companies to design our structures. Why EPCOR? This utilitarian approach puts us at risk of missing out on some more forward-thinking ideas from architects and designers, people who are trained to think outside the box. Letting contractors and utilities companies design our city will leave us with more colour-changing lights and not with more city-defining structures.
I like the interactive idea, and its also been done in the newest part of the international airport. The CN Tower in Toronto also has neat colour patterns that can be made meaningful, unlike the anticipated screensaver effect (which now lights up the Alberta Legislature, and I think is an improvement over the ugly yellow flood lights). The EPCOR waterfall on Churchill Square has multicolour lighted tubes that can be interactive (there is a motion sensor in front of the pool), so the HLB could be a wicked variation on that on a massive scale. I’d really like to see that.
-Jerry
[...] Mike Otto over at the Charrette wrote about lighting the High Level Bridge, and how there’s a good way to do that and a bad way. [...]
I do like the idea of the lights following cars. At peak hours not so interesting; but later in the evenings it would look pretty cool. Sort of like a wake when on a boat.
Lights following things is already a copy of what YEG installed along the arrivals path in the new extension. I would expect it would only be a matter of time before it becomes the same cliché as colour-cycling LEDs.
Can’t we just have bridge lighting which is bridge lighting? Just show the bridge, and not try to dress it up?
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