Boundary layer
Swire Wall – a new landmark in Quarry Bay
Quarry Bay is a densely populated area in Hong Kong Island’s Eastern District, pinched between steep green peaks to the south and Victoria Harbour to the north.
Hong Kong is a place of vast architectural contrast, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Quarry Bay. Aging and densely packed 60’s and 70’s high, and low rise, concrete structures alongside the most modern glass towers.
Swire’s latest addition is the tenth tower to be added to the interconnected Taikoo Place business hub. The boundary layer between the new property and its environs would be a wall of sorts, but an art wall. The working name became simply: the Swire Wall. It transforms the ancient, narrow Kam Hoi Street into a spectacle.
The visionary design and fabrication of the art wall is the work of Miriam Sleeman and Tom Sloane. They conceived a colorful layer of metal tiles that would transform a 60m long, 6m high concrete boundary wall into a sculpture. A riot of shades of red metal tiles – utterly unique.
The sculpture comes to life as the sun sets. Embedded in the wall are 4,569 custom LED lights, attached to every other tile. Each illuminated tile would become a “Pixel Brick”, individually controllable in 3000K dimmable warm white.
Miriam and Tom have designed animated lighting programs that sparkle within the sculpture, reminiscent of a soft breeze passing through the leaves of a tree or slowly running water.
illumination Physics’ primary role in this project was the development and manufacture of the custom hardware, including the design of the luminaires and the electrical and data control systems within the wall.
The first challenge was to produce a tiny luminaire that could be integrated perfectly and neatly into each pixel brick. It was to produce sufficient illumination of the pixel brick above it without any hotspots or veiling reflections in the satin finish of the tiles.
Miriam and Tom had their own preferences for the control system components and Illumination Physics would source and assemble and deliver the system and assist with Testing and Commissioning.
The Swire wall bounds one side of Kam Hoi Street, which is not only the boundary layer, but also a public throughfare carrying light but essential traffic in two directions. The illumination of the roadway must meet minimum luminance and uniformity standards, according to its category of L4, a Local Distributor.
Lighting Designers Spiers and Major had been engaged for the overall development and had concluded the light poles would be replaced by lighting integrated into the top of the Swire Wall which would illuminate Kam Hoi Street without the ugliness and glare caused by streetlights on poles. How exactly that would be done became a design exercise in which two illumination Physics solutions were modelled in Dialux software. A high-powered linear wash light and a circular wash light.
Once our responsibilities were complete, we could enjoy the vision of the Swire wall sculpture coming to life. The use of the various shades of red is a masterpiece and in Hong Kong, culturally appropriate. As the sun sets every day, organic patterns of light appear in a variety of organic and dynamic displays. When your eyes first settle upon it, the wall is a delight. Quite the nicest way to define a boundary we have seen.
