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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. 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. Public Art < Previous Next > Photo: AJ Epstein Photos: Eduard Hueber / Arch Photo Dreaming in Color Location Marion O. McCaw Hall, Seattle, Washington Client The City of Seattle, Seattle Center Team LMN Architects, GGN. Ron Fogel Associates Dreaming in Color, a three-dimensional color field was commissioned by two public art agencies and the Seattle Center. The artwork at the Seattle Center is constructed of nine large-scale metal-mesh scrims framing the Kreielsheimer Promenade at the Marion O. McCaw Hall Theater. The passageway is 450- feet long. The rectangular scrims stand 30-feet vertically and range from 40 to 70 feet wide. Geometrically extending the theater lobby outward -- and echoed by the hardscape patterning below-- the progression of scrims simultaneously defines and echoes the architecture of what was once a negligible interstitial space. Each mesh plane is dynamically illuminated including the ground plane. Dreaming in Color further transforms the landscape at night-- intensifying the welcome that awaits Seattle Center visitors. Perspective viewing of the accumulated, illuminated surfaces magnifies the potential for animated color mixing as the scrims are virtually transparent. Through calculated aiming angles an orchestrated set of "melodies for the eyes" are heightened by horizontal bands of secondary shades that feather into the wider fields of color. Dreaming in Color seeks to build upon and extend the Color Field explorations begun by painters in the 1950’s and continuing up until present day. Chromatic abstraction defined the work of Color Field pioneers including Mark Rothko, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, and Jules Olitski – all of whom flooded large canvases with pure pigments varied in saturation and contrast. These early Color Field artists were interested in creating “atmospheres” in which color was the subject, and when viewed close-up, became environments in and of themselves. The vision that drove Dreaming in Color from its conception to its actualization was offering a theatrical experience to all Seattle Center and McCaw Hall visitors, whether ticket holders or not, transporting the building’s meaning from inside to outside for all to experience. In 2018, the lighting fixtures were upgraded to LED and new dynamic sequences were designed by Schwendinger. Additionally, professional designers are currently also invited to experiment with the color field installation.

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: Hanns Joosten Photos: Hanns Joosten The Park Location Las Vegas, Nevada Client MGM Resorts International Team !MELK, Marnell Architecture, Cooper Robertson & Partners, Arup “The Park”, is the first open green space on the Las Vegas Strip. Schwendinger, with Arup, created illumination concepts for the 55 to 75-foot tall, individually unique, shade structures. Built in a shipyard in Rotterdam, Leni was allowed two working nights to demonstrate the winning color-changing schemes. The typological light angles were documented in-situ. Once shipped and installed into The Park, Arup’s lighting design team supervised light fixture placements on specialty mounting plates inside the structures. Lighting technicians were required to wear climbing gear to scale the steep metal side walls while attaching and cabling the LED color changing units. Light is primarily emitted from inside out. The inner perforated surfaces of the tulip-shaped structures are painted white as a slender canvas for boldly reflected hues of the rigorously planned color palette. Illumination cast onto the dark exterior surfaces is restricted to surprise moments to give the sense of opening up or blooming. Computer program sequences were conducted over several nights. It was important to calibrate the brightness and dynamics in relation to the surrounding Strip with its highly colored blinking light-signs. The sixteen monumental shade structures transform mesmerically throughout the evening and, on the quarter-hour, depict colors of cactus blossoms.

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 > Photo: Leni Schwendinger Light Projects Photo: Leni Schwendinger Light Projects 82nd Street Partnership Lighting Strategy Location Quees, NY Client 82nd Street Partnership (Business Improvement District) Team NightSeeing The 82nd Street Partnership (BID), located in a Queens New York City commercial core, required strategic lighting advice and three distinct creative designs. A lighting task-force was assembled and a NightSeeing™ program was initiated to educate the public and stakeholders before workshopping an approach for the district’s nighttime environment. Leni Schwendinger and her team worked closely with the Partnership and their constituency to envision a lighting strategy to connect and unify district-wide assets, establish a unique discernible identity and reinforce the Partnership’s effective stewardship on behalf of property owners, merchants, residents, workers, and visitors. Site-specific lighting programs were developed during the community meetings and workshop to enhance the after-dark experience of residents, workers, and visitors through legibility, safety, and city enjoyment. All night technical measurements and observations were undertaken throughout the study area. Through the NightSeeing™ analysis, darkened gaps and on–the- ground observations identified opportunities for light to unlock potentials and strengthen area assets (subway transit nodes, building facades, public art, etc), with an eye on creating an enhanced district signature. Three model project designs were presented for funding. The “Living Lanterns” to activate public spaces with a Festival of Light, the “One Light at Night” is a storefront program, and the “Underpass Light” which illuminates the traffic corridor intersections, marks overground subway stops and enhances place identity. A set of core principles were established. - Quality of Life - Economic Development - Enhance Community Building - Placemaking - Public Health & Safety - Public-Private Partnership Guidelines were assembled in book form for future consideration.

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. Over 20 years of designing innovative lighting concepts, providing full-service light designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. INFRASTRUCTURE + BRIDGES Iridescent Waves LOCATION: Queens, NY U.S. CLIENT: Urbahn Architects TEAM: Marvel Design, Hunter Roberts Construction Groups Continue 42nd Street Bus Terminal, Triple Bridge Gateway LOCATION: New York, New York, U.S. CLIENT: Port Authority of NY and NJ TEAM: PKSB, Flack + Kurtz Continue George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge LOCATION: Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. CLIENT: Kentucky Department of Transportation, Louisville Downtown Partnership TEAM: Carman Architects Continue 6th Street Viaduct Replacement LOCATION: Los Angeles, California, U.S. CLIENT: LA Bureau of Engineering TEAM: HNTB, Michael Maltzan Architects, Hargreaves Continue Under the Elevated, Phase II Pilot LOCATION: Sunset Park, Brooklyn, U.S. CLIENT: Design Trust for Public Space, New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), Industry City TEAM DESIGN FELLOWS: Tricia Martin, Landscape and Sustainability; Quilian Riano, Urban Design; Arup, Technical Lighting Continue MTA Enhanced Station Initiative LOCATION: New York City, NY, U.S. CLIENT: New York City Transit, The MTA TEAM: Grimshaw, Arup, Page Ayres Cowley Architects Continue Kingston Bridge LOCATION: Glasgow, Scotland CLIENT: Glasgow City Council Department of Development and Regeneration Services TEAM: McKeown Alexander Architects, Mott MacDonald 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. 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. Over 20 years of designing innovative lighting concepts, providing full-service light designs that optimize city, urban, and public spaces. NIGHTSEEING™ CLIENTS Architecture/Engineer/Construction Industry Architects and Planners Landscape Architects Urban Designers Lighting Designers Municipalities Department of Transportation and Public Works Department of Planning Department of Sustainability Tourist Board Business Improvement Districts Architecture/Engineer/Construction Industry Architects and Planners Landscape Architects Urban Designers Lighting Designers Municipalities Department of Transportation and Public Works Department of Planning Department of Sustainability Tourist Board Business Improvement Districts I had the pleasure to participate in Leni's important "wake-up call" on how we want to develop our cities in the future. Leni brought up many important questions and leaves us in new light. Great work, looking forward to more! –– NightSeeing™ attendee (Times Square) Despite the Covid-induced constraints of a Zoom talk, through a virtual 'walk' through the City of London Leni was still able to artfully show the fundamental importance and advantages of night to our sense of place and understanding of our urban surrounds. –– Virtual NightSeeing™ attendee (London) Book an Online Tour www.nightseeing.net Light Projects and NightSeeing™ together comprise a platform for locally engaged, inspiring nights. By identifying the needs and wants of your constituents we drill down to the real needs of nighttime lighting so that community gets on board. Districts undergoing improvements often neglect 50% of the 24-hour day. The hours between dusk and dawn can be a concern – for safety, lack of activity (dead zones) or too much activity (bars and late-night noise). Our job is to work with stakeholders solve these challenges. NightSeeing™, Navigate Your Luminous City, is a staged program in one, two or three parts Walking: raise awareness and elevate the vocabulary of light, Workshopping: build consensus for future nighttime objectives Strategizing: develop an action plan to implement local night and light projects Leni takes your audience through an immersive LightWalk experience, decoding the shadows twinkling lights of the city to open minds and hearts to the potential of your urban night.

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.