27 July, 2010
LIGHTING DESIGN FOR FOUR C BUILDING, BEIJING
(Aild, AIDI, PLDA,IALD)
Architectural Project: MOa, Mario Occhiuto Architetture
Structural and Plants Project: Favero & Milan Ingegneria
Lighting consultant: Carlo Ercoli – iGuzzini illuminazine Spa
Luminaires: iGuzzini illuminazione spa
The Four C building plays host to a prestigious institution, the Ministry of the Environment, especially considering the modern-day importance of environmental protection in the world. It is based on the idea of sustainability, and includes many meanings such as: adaptability, recognisability, energy sustainability, accessibility, creating a building that can help to enhance local identity.
Adaptability to the environment and harmonious insertion in the urban context have contributed to its architectural form.
The building, through architecture, takes on a recognisable aesthetic and formal connotation, creating a presence that is easily identifiable in the capital’s urban landscape.
The north face is characterised by the concept of closure, arising from the need to shield the building from heavily used roads, protect it from the cold winter winds from the north- north-west, and from the need to confer solemnity to this side of the building, as expressed by the customer. This facade has a monumental and compact appearance.
Thanks to light the building will have to be easily recognisable, and help the viewer to discover its architectural details.
The north side of the Four C building was conceived by architect Mario Occhiuto as a large parallelepiped, suspended on a double-height glass-covered volume, with large-sized stone blocks and horizontal and vertical cuts for window openings. The basic compositional matrix is interrupted and made dynamic by the presence of large-scale elements, two double-height loggias and a single-height loggia that emphasise the void concept, and a glass section (the crash room) running vertically around the whole building and leaving the side of the facade, emphasising the solid concept.
Horizontal and vertical elements, voids and solids, bound by a monumental facade, are the distinguishing elements of the building’s architecture.
My job has been to translate the language of the architecture into the language of Light.
In other words, to characterise these 4 signs, these 4 different architectural languages, through light, differentiating them using different colour tones.
The four seasons represent the evolution of the environment.
These bring changes to the environment, following a climatic and chromatic evolution process.
The lighting idea is thus that of representing the environment and the architecture representing it in this building through the 4 seasons and chromatic symbology.
The seasons are a symbol of the periodical renewal of nature, and are closely related to the astrological tradition of celestial influences in the sublunar world.
The changing seasons regulate the rhythms of nature and of human life.
They express a cyclical conception of time, sym¬bol of the eternal rebirth of the cosmos.
According to Western iconography the seasons are represented in the form of men and women of different ages or as the four sacred animals of the heavens (ram, lion, bull, snake) and the four cosmic elements (air, fire, earth, water).
In Greek and Roman mythology the Olympic divinities corresponding to the seasons were: Flora for spring; Demeter for summer; Dionysius for autumn; Satur¬n for winter.
The seasons also regulate the fundamental moments of a man’s life: birth (spring), maturity (summer), decline (autumn) and death (winter).
The 4 seasons in China on the other hand are represented by: the chrysanthemum (autumn), the plum (spring), the peacock (winter) and the lotus (summer).
Each architectural sign will thus be represented by a specific season.
Analysing the facade, I discovered that:
The vertical windows express a moving, growing, evolving process. They express a dynamic form. They are represented by SPRING, by the Air element. SPRING is represented with the colour Blue, the colour of thought, of liberation, of sensation, of intuition.
The horizontal windows represent stability, the earth plane, the horizon, or a man resting, they express a static form. They are represented by AUTUMN, by the Earth element. AUTUMN is represented with the colour Orange, the colour of growth, love, the family, passion combined with feeling.
The Crash room is a solid volume which, leaving the building’s facade, expresses a concept of fullness, of prosperity. It is represented by SUMMER, by the Fire element. SUMMER is represented with the colour Red, a symbol of vital energy, is the sign of positiveness, impulse, power, conquest.
The loggias are forms that have lost portions of volume, they are forms created from subtractions, voids that express something missing, aridity. They are represented by WINTER, by the Water element. WINTER is represented with the colour Green, the symbol of knowledge, of mystery, of fate.
Its role as a government building has made it necessary to emphasise the official and monumental nature of the facade.
The two attached elements on the sides, a symbol of stability, and the triangular element crowning the building, a symbol of solemnity, become the fifth element, the quintessence, the element of union. They are the sum of the cyclical conception of time, expressing the year, and are represented by the colour WHITE.
This is the pure Light of Illumination, the colour of colours, containing all of them; White exists as it is formed by all other colours in Unity. It has always represented Purity, Innocence, Wisdom. It is the colour of ENERGY.
As the seasons are related to the astrological tradition of celestial influences on the sublunar world and regulate the rhythms of nature and of human life, in the same way as lunar phases, having finished the cycle of seasons, the architectural elements characterising the building (horizontal and vertical windows, voids and solids), will ALL be illuminated by the symbol of the MOON, by the colour SKY BLUE, up to midnight.
From Midnight to DAWN, these elements will refer to the symbol from which the whole environment derives, EARTH, symbolised by the colour ORANGE.
« Torna Indietro
|
Subscribe to newsletter luceonline.it |
