Lighting for garage 2001-2005 – P. Struycken (2005)

For many motorists, a parking garage is the entrance to a city. It is a place of coming and going, dynamism and mobility. Thanks to its space and lack of daylight, a parking garage is also a fantastic place to experiment with light. Reason enough for CBK Groningen to start a series of new media commissions in parking garages.

Artist P. Struycken’s first assignment was a lighting design for the parking garage underneath the Ossenmarkt. Struycken became known for the ‘dotted stamp’ of Queen Beatrix, the lighting design for the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, the development of a colour scheme for the galleries in the Groninger Museum and the 200-metre-long light installation along the ring road near the MCL in Leeuwarden.

Ossenmarkt parking garage in the spotlight
The basis of the artwork is formed by 20 light boxes on the floor of the garage, arranged in such a way that they shine different colours of light into the high void and illuminate the concrete construction. Struycken wrote a computer program for this that generates variations in colour sequence and colour mixing without repetition. The timing of the colour mixing is based on the average speed at which the cars drive around the void. This allows people to experience the changes in colour without the disorienting effect of excessively rapid changes.

More colours than the rainbow
The principle of colour changes is based on light colour mixing of red, green and blue light, which, in principle, mixes all colours. Struycken used the colours of the rainbow for this work of light. By mixing red and blue light, he added the reddy-violet colour section that does not occur in the rainbow and that is only possible by mixing light.

The obtained colour sequences were then divided into 12 visually equal intervals: yellow, orangey-yellow, orange, red, reddy-violet, violet, bluey-violet, bluey-green, green, yellowy-green, greeny-yellow and yellow again. The computer program calculates the gradual colour transitions between two successive colours from these 12 colours. The visual variety is created by varying the time in which the colour transitions are calculated and the freedom of the program to calculate the colour transitions in both directions.

In addition, our impression of colour is partly determined by the sequence in which we see the colours. Every colour impression is influenced by the colour that precedes and follows it. For example, the impression of red is influenced by the fact that it follows orange or is reached from the reddy-violet. What’s more, the speed of change makes a difference: Whether this happens slowly, quickly or relatively quickly. As a result, one experiences a multitude of colour impressions that are partly caused by the actual mixing and perception of the coloured light and by colour impressions that are illusory because colour impressions form in our heads as a result of colour sequence and time.

The company euroGenie converted Struycken’s computer program into a control program for red, green and blue-coloured fluorescent lights. euroGenie developed an electronically controlled, completely gradual dimming of the individual lights so that any intermediate colour can be mixed. The luminaire they have also developed achieves a mix of colours that illuminates the garage evenly from bottom to top.The colour changes are calculated in ‘real time’. This means that a computer permanently generates the new colour values.
The result: a dynamic lighting design and a unique experience for those driving or walking through the parking garage.

The artwork was unveiled on 17 June 2005 on and in the Ossenmarkt – with a car ballet, flautist Anne la Berge and the mayor, Jacques Wallage.

Partners
The artwork was realised with the collaboration of Q-Park Nederland, euroGenie, Bureau Noordeloos Groningen and the Municipality of Groningen.
The Groningen Q-Park parking garage has now been awarded the ‘Parkeergarage Project Prijs’, an award for, among other things, the best-equipped, most efficient and service-oriented, as well as the architecturally most aesthetically pleasing park garage in the Netherlands. The designer? Bureau Noordeloos(?) entered the parking garage for the prize, which was awarded during the ParkeerVak 2005 event in Rosmalen.