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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: Leni Schwendinger Glowing Waterway Location Unna, Germany Client The City of Uma Team Leni Schwendinger Light Projects For an international artists’ program, five artists were commissioned to design site-specific installations using the medium of light to line the streets leading to the town center. During the fall and winter seasons of 2003, Schwendinger created a temporal course - a sensuous environment suffused with liquid-light colors – leading to the central square. Water Street in the town of Unna, Germany, is named for the stream beneath its surface and the path it makes to the Ruhr River. Hell Weg, or Bright Way, an ancient pilgrimage pathway crisscrosses the underground river. Glowing Waterway recalls the flows of water and footsteps that have traversed this path since the 15th century. Utilizing the cartographic lines as a launch point, Schwendinger created a graphic ripple-form as artwork in two ways, formed into a fiber optic strand mounted in mid-air, and recapitulated into a light projection cast onto the paving. Visitors experienced Glowing Waterway as a street and as a river of light, redefined by a festoon of continuous, illuminated, aquamarine lines. The projected forms bathed the visitors as they rested on curvy concrete benches. Playing with perspective - the large-scale of the Hell Weg, the street-scale of Water Street, and the small-scale of a ripple - the installation was perceived on many levels and by many ages, children through adult. Viewed from afar, luminous lines and patterns converged to create a path of sparkling water-light. Up close, Unna residents, workers, and visitors experienced the artwork as a gathering space for conversations and evening fun.

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 Spaces + Streets < Previous Next > Photos: Steven Brooke Photos: Steven Brooke 1111 Lincoln Road Location Miami Beach, Florida Client Robert Wennett and the City of Miami Beach Team Raymond Jungles, Kimley-Horn and Associates The illumination design for 1111 Lincoln Road–created with Raymond Jungles Landscape Architecture–aspires to be bold, simple, and timeless. The project was inspired by Morris Lapidus’ original vision of an outdoor, tropical setting for shopping, dining, and public gathering and refined by Raymond Jungles’ collaboration with architects Herzog & de Meuron. Architectural Record’s review of the site observes that “the designers refigured the street space as an extension of the pedestrian mall; its urban savanna of tall canopy trees and intricate marble pavements ... [is] symbolic of native ecosystems more than touristic preconceptions--create yet another variant of civic space in Miami.” The plaza is structured by water gardens, planting areas, and varying paving stone stripes. The pavers define pedestrian movement and visibility for the proposed and existing retailers, restaurants, and entertainment venues. For public gatherings, presentations, and events, a central open space is defined by a slightly raised multifunctional platform. Lighting brings the lush vegetation into view during the active evening hours-- emphasizing the hardscape boundaries and curvy planted islands. The low-level illumination accentuates the elegant romantic feeling of the public space area and provides a connection between the shop-window street walls.

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 > Photos: Mark Johnson / Civitas NORTH EMBARCADERO VISION PROJECT (NEVP) Location San Diego, CA Client Port of San Diego Team Project Design Consultants, Civitas, Spurlock Poirier For the San Diego Esplanade, Leni Schwendinger Light Projects’ team designed illumination for the waterfront, gardens, and the Broadway approach. A multi-year project, the Embarcadero’s asphalt surfaces, sad kiosks, and lack of trees set against the magnificent San Diego Bay waters provided bones for revitalization. The project envisioned a gateway to San Diego’s downtown creating a regenerated destination. The consultant team worked with multiple clients, including the business improvement district, Civic San Diego, Port of San Diego, and the City of San Diego. A welcoming urban park interwoven with a working waterfront was the result of the redeveloped masterplan. Following a highly collaborative, public engagement process, Phase 1 of NEVP reclaimed a 1,000-foot long vehicular-oriented throughway and returns the Bay’s water’s edge to thousands of visitors enjoying the many cultural activities found along the water’s edge. The Light Projects’ team collaborated closely with two landscape architects, urban designer, engineers, and public artist. Amid the lush landscape of trees, paths, and plazas, visitors encounter architecturally bold ticket kiosks, artist-designed shade pavilions, and a café. The lighting, graphics, and furnishings recall the craft and heft of the maritime industries. A series of formal garden rooms are defined by the redesigned landscape with seating areas and a complement of custom light poles. An 8-foot-wide water quality band provides visible conveyance and treatment of stormwater to the harbor’s edge. Parallel to the walkway a runnel creates an incised, illuminated line at night. A grand hallway along West Broadway is created by Medjool Date Palm trees planted along the median and sidewalks. The tall, linear palms alternate with Schwendinger’s spiral light-poles, which are 30-feet high and perform both street lighting and up-light the palm tree canopies. At the end of Broadway, the Port Pavilion features Schwendinger’s Tidal Radiance a dynamic, exterior glass, metals, and public-art light wall. All elements of the project, including plant materials, ground surfaces, and furnishing designs, were based on the appropriate scale and durability for the coastal environment.

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 > Photos: Ted Tarquino George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge Location Louisville, Kentucky Client Kentucky Department of Transportation, Louisville, Downtown Partnership Team Carman Architects The historic cantilevered truss bridge, locally known as Second Street Bridge, crosses the Ohio River. The approach road was transformed into a plaza with plantings, seats and, pedestrian spaces to host festivals and celebrations, shaded by the dynamically illuminated overpass. The objective was to transform the off-ramp into a vibrant promenade. The underside of the bridge is enhanced with a floating effect of cast light; outlining and illuminating the I-beam surfaces and textures. The duo-tone lighting color scheme – red and gold – is projected upon a buttercream paint color coating “canvas”. These selections are based on a celebration of amber liquid bourbon and the colors of sunset. Street lighting, also designed by Light Projects is enhanced at night for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers on Whisky Row, where the brightened bridge fascia appears as a visual destination. On the face of the bridge pointing toward Washington and Witherspoon, a line of bright beacons is programmed in dynamic and rhythmic sequences which chase up and down Second Street each hour to count-down the hour – from sunset to midnight on weekdays, and sunset to 2:00 AM on Friday and Saturday. The hourly sequences bring the old I-beam structure to life, as if the bridge itself is breathing, when looking up and toward the Ohio River.) To keep costs down, this design is notable for the use of standard fluorescent lights – most often found in offices and industrial locations. An ambiance of warmth and animation is created by combining color filters controlled by an advanced programming system. The beacons can also be seen on Paris’ Eiffel Tower.

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: Guthrie Photography Photos: Guthrie Photography Water Above Water Location Forth and Clyde Canal, Glasgow, Scotland Client Glasgow 1999, British Waterways Team Leni Schwendinger Light Projects “As part of Glasgow’s 1999 City of Architecture and Design initiative, the Maryhill Locks were the focus of a public art project. Coordinated by American lighting designer, Leni Schwendinger, Water Above Water temporarily transformed the locks and Kelvin Aqueduct into a magical, illuminated landscape. A sea of luminous blue, green and aquamarine floodlighting dissolved and animated the stern, hand-hewn stone of the aqueduct’s buttresses and arches.” Excerpt from “Delight”, Architectural Review, December 1999. The year-long festival reiterated Glasgow's tradition of involving communities in the process of redefining their environment. Leni Schwendinger was commissioned by Independent Public Arts in Edinburgh. She aspired to "go where the people live", with an art installation of local Scottish significance that also resonated on an international scale. Water Above Water, a Sublime Floating Landscape was both a temporal art installation and a community-engaged “happening”. Conceived and designed to draw both local and international audiences to the 1,000-foot configuration of landmarked locks and aqueducts in North Glasgow's Maryhill, Water Above Water 's mixage of art, engineering, and illuminations celebrated the Forth & Clyde Canal's visible landscape and invisible industrial heritage--creating an opportunity to reflect the achievements of Glasgow's industrial past Conceived and designed to draw both local and international audiences to the 1,000-foot configuration of landmarked locks and aqueducts in North Glasgow's Maryhill, Water Above Water 's mixage of art, engineering, and illuminations celebrated the Forth & Clyde Canal's visible landscape and invisible industrial heritage--creating an opportunity to reflect the achievements of Glasgow's industrial past. Water Above Water ‘s three artistic elements were: illumination of the Forth & Clyde Canal's landscape and towpath; locally-made floating constructions scaled from miniature to life-size; and light-suffused colors onto the Kelvin Aqueduct's 400-foot-by-70-foot, rusticated-stone and buttresses in the valley below. Viewers of Water Above Water were invited to stroll through an unforgettable landscape of natural and constructed experience, while British (now Scottish) Waterway’s lockkeepers operated the lock-gates so the canal waters rose and fell in a timed sequence. Artist Leni Schwendinger instigated local involvement, which emanated from the neighborhood center’s community art and kayaking classes. Following the public artist’s design brief, student artists developed an elementary school curriculum that entailed building papier-mâché water-creature floats. An architect and professional artist group also interpreted the design brief with abstract silvery sculptures. The kayakers put the floats in place. Additionally, electric model-ship makers from east Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park arrived to float their battleships during the installation.

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.