Innovative Lighting Design Fosters Community

What appeared to be nothing but another dim underpass, has been transformed into an inspiring, community-oriented masterpiece. The 250’ long pedestrian underpass serves as the connection between a residential area and a bustling commercial district. The city of Huntersville, NC, hoped to increase safety and promote community through this thoughtful installation including Color Kinetics technology.

The artist, Project One Studio, was tasked with meeting the minimum safe lighting levels while also creating a representative piece of public art for the community. Designers were faced with many constraints, including stringent regulations from DOT, flooding and vandalism concerns, and public safety requirements. To meet such requirements, innovative lighting technology and design was required. The final design of this installation combined projected graphics on the walls seamlessly blended by Color Kinetics flood lights.  

The project was inspired by the physical layouts of the local bodies of water, aiming to blend the abstract representations of movement with the region’s beloved natural history. This method connects the site’s history and geology with the excitement of the new trail in the community. With this new illumination of the pathway, community members have increases opportunity to enjoy the area’s natural beauty.

Color Kinetics LED lighting helped to achieve the project’s design goals. According to the Founder of Project One Studio, Adam Buente, Color Kinetics products were chosen to complete this innovative design due to “reputation of quality, durability, and the availability of all components to make an ‘off-the-shelf’ system to configure the entire installation from one manufacturer.” The installation features 19 ColorBlast Powercore gen5, RGBW luminaires mounted on the ceiling to create a base gradient that can output both color and warm and cool white light. The luminaires are powered by two Data Enabler Pros and controlled by an iPlayer 3.