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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 Spaces + Streets < Previous Next > Photo: Sam Oberter Photography Photo: Leni Schwendinger Queens Plaza Streetscape & Park Location New York City, NY Client NYC Economic Development Corp Team Margie Ruddick, Wallace Roberts &Todd (WRT), Marpillero Pollak Architects, Michael Singer The Queens Plaza project spans 1.3 miles in the Long Island City Business District. The project revitalizes JFK Park and connects it to the dramatic water’s edge below the Queensboro Bridge. The installation opened in Spring 2012 and has transformed this primary entry point into Long Island City and Queens into a dynamic and appealing gateway. Results included improved traffic flow and enhanced the pedestrian environment with new sidewalks, curbs, plantings, landscaped traffic medians, bikeways, and enhanced lighting. A former parking lot was transformed into the inviting 1.5-acre Dutch Kills Green park with an array of benches, plantings, and landmark trees that are illuminated. The public space features non-invasive, drought-tolerant native plantings and artist-designed interlocking, permeable pavers that direct storm-water to the plantings. Schwendinger’s Light Projects designed the roadway, bikeway, and amenity lighting.

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: Keith Jacobs NightSeeing at Myrtle Beach Location Myrtle Beach, California Client Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance Team NightSeeing Download the Report Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is planning and designing an Arts and Innovation District. Nighttime designer and urban lighting consultant, Leni Schwendinger was commissioned by the Myrtle Beach Downtown Alliance (MBDA) to conduct her NightSeeing™️ methodology to address nighttime and lighting issues and to set objectives for the future. The mission of NightSeeing™️ is to transform cities at night into safe and welcoming, inspiring and inclusive places. Through close collaboration with MBDA, a customized program including a LightWalk, an invited workshop, stakeholder Q&A, and an open public presentation was delivered. Stakeholders attended Leni’s talk and LightWalk tour where they experienced a fresh perspective on positive and negatively perceived night spaces, their social and physical conditions, and lighting atmospheres. The purpose was to provide a qualitative experience with a vision of the future in mind. Attendees included the Myrtle Beach Mayor, City Council, and City Operations staff. Small business owners and managers participated. Also in attendance were arts and culture representatives such as Coastal Carolina University. Vocabulary and the language of light were expanded to describe how an after-dusk vitalized district would look and feel. As a baseline, during the Envisioning Workshop, attendees identified three objectives for the District’s nighttime design. 1. Identifiable pathways for walking and bikeways that emphasize connection 2. A canvas of light with focal points designed with historic characteristics and innovative features 3. Transformable fun spaces that welcome people at night Significantly the program produced an enthusiastic community cohort through active learning through group walking and workshopping. A launch point has been established for a nighttime masterplan to improve the after-dark environment of the proposed Arts & Innovation District in Myrtle Beach.

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: NYC Department of Transportation Photo: Leni Schwendinger Under the Elevated, Phase II Pilot Location Sunset Park Brookly, NY Client Design Trust for Public Space, New York City of Department of Trasnportaion (DOT), Industry City Team Tricia Martin, Landscape and Sustainability; Quilian Riano, Urban Design; Arup, Technical Lighting There are 700 miles of elevated infrastructure which creates darkened spaces below New York City’s bridges, expressways, and rail tracks. The New York City DOT intends to develop a set of physical design typologies to reclaim these public spaces. Design Trust for Public Space coordinated a study and pilot program with partners DOT and Industry City tapping collaborative design fellows including Leni Schwendinger for illumination at the Gowanus Expressway at 36th Street and 3rd Avenue. There are 700 miles of elevated infrastructure which creates darkened spaces below New York City’s bridges, expressways, and rail tracks. The New York City DOT intends to develop a set of physical design typologies to reclaim these public spaces. Design Trust for Public Space coordinated a study and pilot program with partners DOT and Industry City tapping collaborative design fellows including Leni Schwendinger for illumination at the Gowanus Expressway at 36th Street and 3rd Avenue. Underpasses are notorious as dividers between communities and assets such as waterfronts: daytime can feel spooky and nighttime dangerous. Our design includes a light-colored paint coating for comfort and better visibility during the day. The parking configuration was rationalized, and tiles defined a safe walkway. Features include a botanical experiment to cleanse run-off water from the upper-level road surface. For lighting, we sought to stitch together both geographical sides of the bridge, which lead to and from the Upper New York Bay waterfront and 36th Street subway stop. The lighting scope included focal points such as illumination of the unusual, splayed columns and curved beams, as well as volumetric space illumination for pedestrian waiting and crossing. Additionally, tests were conducted with green infrastructure plants and horticultural lighting. Illumination, especially the plant lighting, was called out as number one in the list of improvements by the DOT post-installation survey of visitors, residents and local workers. From the New York Times, “The murky blocks by 36th Street and Third Avenue now have brighter lighting, beautified lighting, beautified walkways and lovely planters to clean the air and filter runoff from the highway above.”

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: Mark Johnson / Civitas Photos: Mark Johnson / Civitas North Embarecadero Vision Plan 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. 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.

SEARCH RESULTS All (142) Blog Posts (95) Other Pages (47) 142 items found Blog Posts (95) Light: Power, Inspire, Play Into darkness, the artistry of light proclaims a special power to inspire and play...to encourage the best proclivities of our built environment. Urban Braids in Progress in Flatbush Brooklyn On June 3, 4, and 5 Chris and I spent midnight work shifts so common for urban lighting. This time supervising prepared string and rope -light while the strands were suspended by Friedman Productions. The subway train splits Newkirk Plaza into 2 walkways lined with gritty retail and restaurants. Looking up from Brooklyn’s Newkirk Plaza subway platform, the straphanger will exclaim, I have arrived! Also looking down from the Plaza, Urban Braids presents a carnivalesque sight against the smooth subway platform illumination. A strange juxtaposition. D.I.Y. Lighting is braided, twisted string lighting made by local community. The Evolution of Community Engagement- where are we now? Community Engagement: Beyond the Survey A 2-Way Street What is your view about community participation in public space design? Community design approaches are evolving through best-practice methodologies, including pilots, research, and hands-on co-creation. Lighting designers, learning from outreach program specialists, are transforming the predominant view that involving community or space-users results in mediocre design. We believe that real involvement is a reciprocal knowledge transfer. Designers provide active learning scenarios to elicit local insights. Residents, workers and stakeholders inform designers about place-keeping legacies, priorities, and geographic/socially based genius loci with which designers can develop the best public spaces even after dark! Water above Water, a Sublime Floating Landscape (Glasgow, Scotland) An early, temporal, community-engaged project In 1999 Leni was offered an opportunity to blend environmental artwork and social engagement. Site specificity is an approach that landscape architects and public artists use to make a space into a place. Design factors include the site's histories, the culture, geography, and other threads. Leni's background as a community organizer and lighting designer merged for Water Above Water. "A sea of luminous blue, green and aquamarine floodlighting dissolved and animated the stern, hand-hewn stone of the aqueduct's buttresses and arches." — Architectural Review (UK) View All Other Pages (47) Water Above Water 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. Zaryadye Park Landscape + Parks < Previous Next > Photo: Philippe Renault Image: Leni Schwendinger Light Projects Zaryadye Park Location Moscow, Russia Client City of Moscow Team Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Hargreaves, Citymakers, Mobility in Chain, Buro Happold, Arup ​ ​ Leni Schwendinger joined the DS+R team for a highly sought-after, international, design competition for a park adjacent to Red Square with St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin. The team was selected out of 90 submissions from 27 different countries. Russia’s geographical variety is mirrored in the landscape design: Arctic lands, birch, coastal and coniferous forests, the steppe, and a meadow. Buildings and pavilions such as concert halls, museums, restaurants, and an ice cave were envisioned as jewels in the landscape. A 70-meter panoramic observation deck is illuminated to appear as if it were suspended in mid-air. ​ Illumination concepts parallel the landscape and architectural principles. Lighting intends to create webs of starry light to mark destinations and delineate paths in an innovative, loosely structured way. Lighting displays interpretive measures of heat and cold weather by light quality and color temperature. Jiading Parks Landscape + Parks < Previous Next > Photo: Sasaki Photo: Leni Schwendinger Light Projects Jiading Parks Location Jiading, China Client Shanghai Jiading New City Development Company Ltd Team Sasaki ​ ​ The initial design brief for Jiading Park called for a radical transformation. In its existing state, the site was comprised of factories, warehouses, and fallow agricultural fields. The park is made of five Zones such as the fitness zone, community zone, and lake zone. The Zones are counterpointed by five major paths that interweave and interact with a variety of park elements. The lighting mirrored use and character of the paths, augmenting identity and wayfinding. The lighting design echoed the creative material palette and dynamic forms. ​ View All