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Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. Over 20 years of designing innovative lighting concepts, providing full-service light designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. PLANNING + COMMUNITY Urban Braids Illuminating Newkirk Plaza LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY, US CLIENT: Flatbush Development Corp. TEAM: Leni Schwendinger Light Projects Continue NightSeeing at Myrtle Beach LOCATION: Myrtle Beach, California CLIENT: Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance TEAM: NightSeeing™ Continue 82nd Street Partnership Lighting Strategy LOCATION: Queens, NY, U.S. CLIENT: 82nd Street Partnership (Business Improvement District) TEAM: NightSeeing™ Continue Smart Everyday Nighttime Design, Cartagena LOCATION: Cartagena, Colombia (Latin America) TEAM: Arup, Despacio, Plane-Site, London School of Economics’ Configuring Light, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, iGuzzini, Findeter Continue Double Bay Centre Public Domain Lighting Strategy LOCATION: Double Bay, Australia CLIENT: Woollahra Municipal Council TEAM: Arup, ASPECT Studios, NightSeeing™ Continue NightSeeing™ Third Street Corridor, for Downtown Santa Monica LOCATION: Santa Monica, California, U.S. CLIENT: Downtown Santa Monica (DTSM), Santa Monica City Planning Department TEAM: NightSeeing™ Continue Municipal Smart City Street Lighting Conversion & Evolving Technology Guidebook LOCATION: New York Capital District, U.S. CLIENT: Capital District Transportation TEAM: International Nighttime Design Initiative (NTD), Planning 4 Place Continue

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Planning + Community < Previous Next > Photos: Kelli Hayden Photography Photos: Kelli Hayden Photography NightSeeing Third Street Promenade for Downtown Santa Monica Location Santa Monica, California Client Downtown Santa Monica (DTSM), Santa Monica City Planning Department Team NightSeeing Downtown Santa Monica, a Business Improvement District, commissioned Leni Schwendinger to conduct a NightSeeing™ program. The purpose was to provide a qualitative, eye-opening experience of nighttime for stakeholders in the Third Street Promenade during the master-planning process. The event consisted of a lecture, followed by a walking tour, and a workshop on the following day. It was attended by stakeholders, city planners, and select public officials. During an energetic walk, observations were pointed out and noted by the attendees. Discussions centered on beloved features as well as less successful spaces, social conditions, and lighting quality. Instruction was provided to expand attendees’ vocabulary to describe objectives for a newly vitalized area for the hours between dusk and dawn. The workshop attendees generated three objectives for a future lighting and night strategy. Overview: Utilize light as a medium that fosters welcome after dark 1. Further develop community connections by providing public space activities for interaction and authentic community involvement. Explore “surprising” night activities that build anticipation and require discovery 2. Build upon the public art program to define and interpret place identity. Consider alleys and adjacent streets as sites, provide gathering places 3. Develop a range of experiential streetscape activities from subtle and nuanced to bold and spectacular The objectives provide a launch point for a future expanded area lighting masterplan.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Public Art < Previous Next > Photos: Eduard Hueber / Arch Photo The Great Hall: A Spatial Portrait Location New Jersey, NJ Client Liberty Science Center Team EwingCole, Ed Purver, Ron Fogel Associates Public artist, Leni Schwendinger, and her studio won the commission from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts percent for art funds New Jersey’s Liberty Science Center’s Great Hall. Working together with the Center’s curator and architect, Schwendinger sited A Spatial Portrait, a monumental, suspended, interactive sculpture eleven feet above the floor in the mid-space of the Hall. This pendant of 120 strands of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), each 10 feet long, creates a dazzling show of light in real time. Reflecting upon and reinterpreting the Center’s belief that every person’s actions affect everyone else on the planet and conversely, how global changes affect each one of us— a light installation was envisioned to capture the movement of every visitor as they circulate throughout the Science Court. The composite movements of visitors create an ever-changing three-dimensional “spatial portrait” of the room. From multiple positions in the Hall, sensors and video cameras track visitors’ movements. Through digital processing and switching, this information is then translated and displayed on a rectangular spatial field. The information displayed in the LED array consists of three different programming concepts— each offering a different interpretation of the movement in the Science Court. These concepts are defined in the following ways: The figurative concept marks the entry of visitors. Visitors’ colors, shapes, and movements are captured by a video camera at a designated area close to the main entrance. This visual information is pixilated, reassembled, and fed into the LED array—and is viewable from multiple vantage points in the Court. Like a three-dimensional mirror of light, the interacting visitors view a low-resolution depiction of their actions displayed in real-time. The diagrammatic concept celebrates the passing of time and movement. Cameras positioned around the LED array track visitors’ presence throughout the Court’s monitored area. As people move through the space, their progress is tracked—drawn into the spatial field above and represented in two preselected colors, orange and white. Vivid bursts of color are displayed in the LED array when people cross paths during a set period.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Infrastructure + Bridges < Previous Next > Photo: Michael Maltzan Architects Photo: Leni Schwendinger Light Projects 6th Street Viaduct Replacement Location Los Angeles, California Client LA Bureau of Engineering Team HNTB, Micahel Maltzan Architects, Hargreaves 2022 Los Angeles Business Council Grand Prize, 2022 ACEC Engineering Excellence Honor Award, 2022 Civil+Structural Engineer Media: Most Popular Infrastructure Project, 2022 Women Transportation Seminar Innovative Transportation Solutions Award Seen in movies and on television, Sixth Street Viaduct is one of America’s most famous and iconic bridges. The bridge acts as a vital connection between the Arts District on the west side of the Los Angeles River and the historic neighborhood of Boyle Heights on the east side. Leni Schwendinger Light Projects led the competition and concept-phase lighting design. Collaborating with architect Michael Maltzan, the City of Los Angeles, and our internal team of interactive designers, a concept was envisioned to display ambient patterns echoing environmental conditions. The innovative concept, a ribbon of light, entitled “Slip Stream”, was presented through rendered video and live demonstrations to a wide variety of stakeholders. Most bridge lighting is visible and interrupts the line of vision. Although highly challenging, team criteria included a desire for concealed lighting. The Light Projects’ design incised mounting niches for under-arch illumination. Additionally, vehicular, low-positioned lighting, rather than standard streetlight poles, was proposed, tested and accepted by the LA Bureau of Engineers. Working with landscape architects, Hargreaves, Schwendinger’s team conceptualized under-bridge lighting for a large-scale park. One goal was to utilize the bridge itself as an armature for lighting, removing the need for lighting fixtures littering the ground plane. Our design set the stage for the final design which was handed off to architects and engineers for the ensuing phases. The opening for the bridge was July 2022.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Infrastructure + Bridges < Previous Next > Photo: Eduard Hueber / Arch Photo 42nd Street Bus Terminal, Triple Bridge Gateway Location New York, NY Client Port Authority of NY and NJ Team PKSB, Flack + Kurtz Host to thousands of daily commuters and travelers, Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal relies on a complex system of ramps and gates for smooth operations. Four ramps – a set of three metal, I-beam type, and one concrete span Ninth Avenue. They connect the terminal with the region and the country, providing access to the Lincoln Tunnel and other roadways. Prior to the reconstruction project, the pedestrian landscape beneath these ramps was shadowy and dismal. In 1995, the Port Authority contacted Manhattan Community Board 4 to ascertain the concerns and desires of the local community. Leni Schwendinger was instrumental in the Community Board’s Task Force, which compiled design guidelines through a community involvement process. Subsequently Leni Schwendinger Light Projects and architectural firm, PKSB, proposed a luminous and colorful architectural design solution for pedestrian and vehicular street traffic, winning the commission. For design approvals, an extensive design and testing process was activated. Testing included color choices and finishes such as mica chips coupled with light beam angles to produce suffusion for an enhanced glow effect, and metal bending techniques for cast ground reflections. Series one tests were held at a film studio and a second, over several nights, in a protected underpass area nearby the site. Leni Schwendinger led this effort. The design choices – from lighting to color pattern – were selected to emphasize the I-beam engineered structure of the bridges. Metal mesh illuminated by standard lighting fixtures is utilized in innovative ways. Reflective panels produce a carpet of light onto the roadbed creating a luminous room in amid an urban node. A preprogrammed control system switches on one of four settings each evening in line with Schwendinger’s philosophy to provide a fresh illuminated environment to the public every evening.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Landscape + Parks < Previous Next > Photo: Singleton/SWA Photo: David Lloyd Hunter's Point South Waterfront Park Phase II Location Queens, NY Client NYC Economic Development Corp Team Arup, SWA/Thomas Balsley, Weiss/Manfredi Architects Hunters Point Park South, Phase 2, along Newtown Creek, transforms 5.5 acres of abandoned industrial landscape into a new waterfront park. This park initiated a complex development that includes 5000 units of affordable housing, two schools, and an expanded ferry stop. The landscape features an illuminated, majestic, cantilevered platform. The 30-foot-high platform reaches out over the East River and provides visitors with panoramic nighttime views of Manhattan’s sparkling skyline. There are varied programmed spaces for children and adults which include a playground, picnic terraces, wooden seating areas, and a kayak launch. Each space is appropriately illuminated. Working closely with landscape architects and architects, the illumination design harmonizes with the stunning, natural, riverside habitat bordered by the city and remnants of its industrial past. Soft lighting is integrated and accentuates park furniture, walkways, and edges.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Planning + Community < Previous Next > International Nighttime Design Initiative (NTD), Planning 4 Places Municipal Smart City Street Lighting Conversion & Evolving Technology Guidebook Location New York Capital District Client Capital District Transportation Team International Nighttime Design Initative (NTD), Planning 4 Places The Municipal Smart City Street Light Conversion & Evolving Technology Guidebook was commissioned to address issues of street light ownership, the streamlining of municipal services, and economic benefits for New York State. Additionally, the convergence of energy-saving, responsive technologies, ownership of data, and infrastructure is being debated across the nation. In parallel, issues of public space equity and social cohesion are in flux. The intent was to provide guidelines proposing a unique hybrid of design, policy, technological and social inputs to the growing field of smart cities applications. As cities and towns across the region convert/upgrade their street lights to energy-saving LED, they must consider and balance lighting quality, safety, after-dark social issues, digital infrastructure, and economic considerations. The guidebook also addresses community engagement, essential for developing trust and on-the-ground knowledge, with a photo narrative about NightSeeing™, an evening program developed by Leni Schwendinger for active learning about illumination and nighttime design. Planning for smart and responsive lighting technologies opens the door to considerations about expanded digital infrastructure. The range of available applications results in a vast set of options and market promises from parking solutions to gunshot detection. Case Study, City of Saratoga Springs With a thriving downtown night-life and historical importance, the City of Saratoga Springs presented an excellent test-case for how to create safe and sustainable nighttime environments through a strategic look at lighting. With additional regional and Northeast case studies, diagrams and images, the guidebook offers context, perspective, and a roadmap for complex decision-making processes. The Saratoga Springs’ streets and open spaces contain a mixture of public lighting with an inconsistent collection of light poles and fixtures as well as light sources – sodium, metal halide and LED. Saratoga Springs desired to consolidate the look and feel of their night lighting and connect it to a central system. Committed to sustainability and exploring enabling technologies through their Smart City Roadmap, they can now consider expanded options such as electric vehicle charging, public WiFi, and data collection capabilities to aid safety, transportation, and other service operations. The International Nighttime Design Initiative (NTD), founded by Ms. Schwendinger, partnered with Planning4Places to complete a Municipal Lighting Technology Guidebook for The Capital District Transportation Committee (CDTC) as part of New York State’s Smart Communities Program. The guidebook also addresses community engagement, essential for developing trust and on-the-ground knowledge, with a photo narrative about NightSeeing™, an evening program developed by Leni Schwendinger for active learning about illumination and nighttime design. The Guidebook is free and available to the public.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Infrastructure and Bridges < Previous Next > Photos: Mikaela Baird Parking Garage and Community Space Location Queens, NY Client Urbahn Architects Team Marvel Design, Hunter Roberts Construction Group PRESS Design-Build Institute of America 2024 National Award of Merit The Queens Parking Garage and Community Space, completed in 2023, is the first New York City Department of Design and Construction "design-build" project. Leni Schwendinger Light Projects (LSLP), a Women-owned Business Enterprise, consulted with Urbahn Architects and Marvel Design, headed by Hunter Roberts Construction Group. Beautiful lighting enhances a feeling of safety, care, and identity. The Queens Parking Garage and Community Center’s east facade is punctuated by triangular, metallic fins. The large-scale dimensional wall is a canvas for illumination. Colored light dynamically displayed in the public realm is an LSLP specialty. The team conducted a series of sketching, rendering, technical, spatial, and budgeting exercises to arrive at the final illumination concept: Iridescent Waves. Clients and designers determined that the massive facade would provide a moment of vibrancy for vehicular viewers traversing the adjacent highway tangle, where the Van Wyck Expressway visually converges with Grand Central Parkway. The textured, luminous wall would be a landmark for those drivers, especially during high traffic volumes. For residential tower occupants, it will provide a far-away point of focus. During the evening hours, Iridescent Waves reflects ever-changing hues inspired by the butterfly and bird wings’ “scattered light” chromatic effect. The selected tones are predominantly of the cool spectrum, accented with warm tones. The sequence plays in a loop from sunset until midnight. The programmed composition is bookended by static white providing “white space on the page.” Bookending provides a beginning and end to the luminous color sequence and focuses the viewer’s attention on the light art itself. LSLP provided lighting design for the building exterior. The Community Center entry faces the Queens Borough Hall. The parking entrance faces east toward the highways. With its outdoor stairways and plazas, all sides of the structure present a dynamic profile during the day. After sunset, the eastern side turns iridescent.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. For over 20 years Light Projects has been designing innovative lighting concepts and providing full-service lighting designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. Experts in both day and nighttime light experiences, resulting in spectacular creative visions with light offering safety, beauty, and sustainability. Planning + Community < Previous Next > Images: Leni Schwendinger with Arup Images: Leni Schwendinger with Arup Double Bay Centre Public Domain Lighting Strategy Location Double Bay, Australia Client Woollahra Municipal Council Team Arup, ASPECT Studios, NightSeeing Double Bay is an upscale, bay-side village that features a blend of natural landscaping, architecture, and waterfront. At night, the area is defined by its dining and social economy. The Council desired an illumination strategy that attracts visitors by visualizing the community’s tagline Stylish, Intimate, Refreshing. The Strategy proposes recommendations for the development and delivery of future lighting projects to create a cohesive nighttime experience within the precinct. It provides guidelines for new lighting infrastructure projects and strategies that will enhance visitor experiences and support creativity in the community. The strategic design process began with a NightSeeing™ program. The workshop and a series of site visits identified key understandings of the current night-time conditions and several objectives for future illumination projects. Following this, the design team worked with stakeholders, decision-makers, and consultants within the client team to identify and agree on key objectives. The Lighting Strategy was developed over nine months and included key stakeholder workshops and meetings. Circulation routes were prioritized according to nighttime usage. Functional and creative overlays were identified. Lighting characteristics were designed, and finally, discrete projects were outlined and priced. Prototypes and selected design projects are being implemented over time. This process was informed by and supports the Double Bay Place Plan 2014. It is consistent with the principles of place-making to maximize Double Bay’s distinctive brand.

Light Projects by Leni Schwendinger is the #1 US based professional lighting studio serving global clients. Over 20 years of designing innovative lighting concepts, providing full-service light designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. INTERNATIONAL NIGHTTIME DESIGN INITIATIVE International Nighttime Design Initiative (NTD) www.nighttimedesign.org Together let’s learn to apply our nighttime design systems, as we have done globally, to enhance safety, economic development, and walkability to your neighborhoods. The International Nighttime Design Initiative (NTD) is a consortium of interdisciplinary experts convening, researching and piloting innovative methods of design for urban enclaves after-dark. Combined with urban lighting, our future advocacy hubs will holistically transform the way cities operate after sun down, by increasing civil, cultural and social interactions into the night hours. Projects by the Initiative have included include Smart Lighting Guidance for New York State, developing innovative pilots with think-tank, New Urban Mobility, and conference presentations about essential night-workers needs for welcoming and safe nighttime design. CLIENTS Architecture/Engineer/Construction Industry Architects and Planners Transportation Engineers Urban Designers Lighting Designers Municipalities Department of Transportation and Public Works Department of Planning Department of Sustainability Department of Public Health Urban Researchers/ Academia –Mark Burton Lighting Urban Communities International (LUCI) “LUCI recently commissioned Leni to compile a report about the state of the field of urban lighting in the U.S. The report submitted by Leni is excellent. It showcases her curiosity and her expertise on the topic. It uncovers interesting differences in nighttime lighting values and governance between European cities and those in America. We are looking forward to continuing our collaborations with Leni on this research."