Constell.ation is an ephemeral lighting installation designed for the gardens of the Presidential Portuguese Republic Residence that intended to activate a space that usually is closed to general public, allowing visitors the opportunity to perambulate on the Presidential gardens and offering an unusual experience of an illuminated marvellous world. The reinterpretation of lightning elements associated with Christmas, has found in the multiplication of lighting arches – which usually embrace the city streets - the opportunity to create an whole intervention composed with different moments, in different places, which intended to hold a continuous diffusion within the different levels of the classical garden, celebrating the Nativities without recurring to common places associated this special festivity.
Materialized by a network of contiguous arches in red corrugated tube, illuminated by a LED lighting system, Conste.llation delicately dances on the gardens, connecting spaces and crafting unexpected routes. The arch - a primordial element in architecture - has the inherent power to create space (under, inside, etc.), and, at the same time, to build a physical relation between two places (between, inside, etc.) being related also to the idea of connection and unification.
Constell.ation is a gestural proposal that recurs to light as a vehicle to evoke a poetic visual language shaped by calligraphies and sketches in the landscape. Implemented in little constellations, the arches construct diverse frameworks, creating illuminated frames fulfilled by the natural and edified surroundings. Willing to occupy the monumental scale of the presidential gardens, Constell.ation is a temporary intervention that builds on an ordinary material, taking it of from its the original context and transporting the visitors to an uncommon place, where temporary and eternal mix together, developing a new atmosphere where reality communicates with the feeling of a fantasy world. The red colour of the flexible corrugated tube, is evocative of Christmas and is complimentary to the green of the gardens, increasing the presence of the installation to the passers-by.
Program: Christmas Lighting
Main Materials: Red corrugated tube
Awards: Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards 2015 – Urban and Landscape Lighting (finalist)
