This newsletter is the first of several communications, over the course of this year, which will focus in-depth on installations of multiple scales, lectures, and exhibitions for which color is an expressive language.

Kingston Bridge, Glasgow, Scotland Completed in July 2005, Chroma Streams is a site-specific, integrated artwork for the highly-trafficked Kingston Bridge in Glasgow, Scotland, a commission by Glasgow City Council as part of its municipal lighting strategy. Leni Schwendinger directs light to illuminate and give resonance to the bridge's overlooked surfaces and to heighten its interplay with the river flow beneath it. Through a series of shifting and evolving real-time patterns, the artwork explores the flow of traffic on the bridge itself and its connection to the slow change of the River Clyde tidal currents.

The artwork is a syntactical structure into which the chance pattern of traffic and the predictable tidal cycles of the Clyde are visually presented–and interpreted–through an ever-shifting, radiant color montage. As traffic pours into and out of Glasgow city centre the interactive artwork feeds back nighttime rhythms of city circulation to onlookers and passersby. A multiplicity of vantage- point perspectives, from cars and riverside pedestrians--combined with the color-changes--offer unique spatial views of the bridge and river.

Two monumental concrete arcs make up the Kingston Bridge... The artist has selected the Bridge’s underside--its visible parallel connection–and its riverine reflection as “the canvas” of her illumination project. Directly under the bridge, the connective linear fascia frame color-flow patterns which overlap in the middle. The artist’s mutable palette selection and highly orchestrated programming allows for 144 sequences of unique color mixes. 36 of which are shown in the graph above. Collaborating with Glasgow architect Ian Alexander, physicist Lord Kelvin’s curvilinear 19th-century Clyde tidal graph was the starting point of the lighting armature design. Two stainless-steel standards--which are approximately six meters high-–are sleek daytime sculptural elements of the Chroma Streams artwork.

Traffic engineers have codified traffic flow–speed and volume–as Levels of Service, or “LOS”. These measurements are like classroom grades. Level A, is constant and clear-moving; the worst, Level F, is a static traffic jam. For Chroma Streams, sensors have been installed on streetlight standards located on the in-bound and out-bound bridges. Data are transmitted each minute to the lighting installation and downloaded into a computer program.

Like a prepared musical instrument, a palette of six colors has been selected for Levels A through F. The colors representing traffic are located in the warm end of the spectrum, starting with a clear yellow (A) grade to a strong red/pink (F). Tides, based on the 24-hour, 50-minute lunar day, are perhaps the world’s most predictable phenomena. Like clockwork, the average estuarine tidal cycle of the Clyde flows in, flows out and turns in and out to the sea. For Chroma Streams, a linear color pattern illustrates the four interlocking cycles. The tidal color palette is based on the cool end of the spectrum from pale green to indigo blue.

The rhythmic and tonal qualities of Chroma Streams arises from everyday occurrences familiar to Glaswegians. Separating traffic from the driving experience allows the familiar to be viewed within its larger, artistic, context. Relating traffic and tide–the Broomielaw area's two great flows–allows viewers to contemplate a chance interrelationship between nature and the manmade.

Team Credits Artwork Owner: Glasgow City Council (Project managed by GCC Development and Regenerations Services), Light Projects' Artist Team: Leni Schwendinger, Charles Cameron, Mark Simpson and Anna Souvorov, Architects: Ian Alexander of JM Architects, Engineers: Glasgow City Council Land Services, Mott MacDonald.

Equipment and Installation: Northern Light, James Young Ltd, Martin Professional, Trichord Data Collection custom software, Normand & Thomson Ltd.

Awards 2005 ASLA Professional Awards, General Design Award of Excellence: The Kreielsheimer Promenade at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, Seattle, WA. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd, LMN Architects and Leni Schwendinger Light Projects LTD comprised the creative team for this award-winning public space. "The Promenade is a subtly undulating, brightly lit open space... [It] is approximately 19,000 square feet, and is one of a series of pedestrian corridors that accommodate hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Seattle Center annually...The landscape and building materials work in harmony to create a magical environment of light during both day and night. The materials selected for the Promenade accentuate the nature of the Northwest environment and provide opportunities to experience the diverse qualities of light in our region. The reflective nature of the stone and water sparkle with silvery light during the day and become a canvas for the bold color and light projected on the scrims at night." Click for more information about the ASLA Award.

2006 AIA Honor Awards for Interior Architecture: Nissan Design America, Farmington Hills, Mich., by design architect Luce et Studio Architects for Nissan Design America. The client challenged the architect to create a "synergistic, creative work environment that would strike a balance between the frank industrial nature of the program and architectural sophistication" by adding a wing for automotive design that would allow a seamless evolution from conception to prototype. The public space allows the staff to communicate through visual images, creating a "public landscape of the design process." From the Jury, “We found that universally the honored designs were a clear expression of the client’s personality and requirements, and the design concepts represented a fresh and inventive approach, reinforced by the appropriate use of materials, lighting, and color.” Link to learn more about the 2006 AIA Awards.

FASHION IN COLORS; Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Museum On Saturday February 11, Leni will lead a Colors Symposium with a tour of the exhibition. Her studio conceptualized and designed immersive color settings with exhibition designers Tsang Seymour. "The Symposium will explore the relationship of color and design, including the sensory aspects of human color vision and a trend forecast examining the links between color trends in various design disciplines. The program concludes with a panel discussion on the role of color in consumer customization."

And on Thursday, March 16, 2006 Leni will lead an evening tour of Fashion in Colors for Cooper-Hewitt Design Watch members.

New York City/UK A recent issue of Architect's Newspaper dated January 18, published 'The Chosen', a survey of readers’ favorite consultants, contractors, fabricators and other services, which included Leni Schwendinger Light Projects LTD.

In Newsday's opinion section dated December 11, 2005, Leni contributed an essay on holiday lighting entitled 'Shades of Night'. She observed, "Other districts keep their darkened corners, relieved by neon bar scribbles. These changing nighttime pictures, painted in light, are what I study on my evening wanderings, watching my shadow double and disappear, depending on the spacing of cobra- headed street- lights, the fluorescents glaring from parking garages and elegant sconces spilling light from hotel and residential entryways."

And International Herald Tribune took note on October 2, 2005: "After all, said Leni Schwendinger, a lighting artist in New York City who is working on a project to illuminate the Coney Island parachute jump, people love light because 'it fills the eye with brightness and delights'."

Glasgow's Herald published an editorial on July 5,2005 headlined "Kingston Bridge in a new light -- Witty initiative will add to city's illuminated night vista."

2005/2006 press links are listed here.

Studio Expansion Senior Design Director, Stephen Bickford and the studio celebrate our first year together. Stephen manages our projects from program to completion with an seasoned, thorough and passionate approach. Full-time associate Courtney Hewitt joined Light Projects recently and brings a background in industrial and graphic design that complements the studio's strengths in architectural lighting, theatre design, visual and media arts.

Last winter LSLP moved to a bright and airy midtown loft in The Arts Building, 336 West 37th Street, Studio 1410, New York, NY 10018.

... We invite you to visit our Hell's Kitchen studio. Please call Welfe Sullano, office manager/marketing coordinator for an afternoon date.