The leaf-shaped metal panel designs at the Spring Garden El stop in Philadelphia are not only striking, they’re also a clever illustration of the street’s name.
Along with these new artistic structures, the new lighting installation has improved safety and visibility at the Spring Garden Connector – that’s Spring Garden Street between Delaware Avenue and 2nd Street. The SEPTA stop is also now bursting with color.
“The street improvements at the stop between Second and Front streets feature a light installation so striking that it hits the eye as more than nice urbanism — it’s public art,” an article in Billy Penn says.
The area, which sits below an I-95 overpass and an elevated SEPTA train station, used to be a dreary stretch of road. Needless to say, the SEPTA bus stops adjacent to the SEPTA El entries were not inviting places to wait for pickup either. The reimagined Spring Garden Connector has since changed the visitor experience as a bright and colorful pedestrian and vehicular underpass.
While the roadway was adequately illuminated with existing lighting, pedestrians were forced to walk through a dimly lit tunnel. Today, lighted portals illuminate the SEPTA station entries, and colorful light glows behind the metal graphics on the walls. The lighting control system’s astronomic time clock allows the LEDs to change either by time of day or by the sun cycle – displaying amber, green and some light blue during daytime and then changing to dark purples and blues at night.
The Lighting Practice is proud to have worked with the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association as well as technical engineering firm NV5 and Cloud Gehshan graphic designers to provide a new visual experience for The Spring Garden Connector.
The design story behind the new light garden at the Spring Garden El stop
Billy Penn | Cassie Owens | December 2016
The walk from Festival Pier to the Spring Garden El stop at night used to be a dark one. Not anymore, though.
The street improvements at the stop between Second and Front streets feature a light installation so striking that it hits the eye as more than nice urbanism — it’s public art.
The project, implemented by the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association, cost $2.4 million in a patchwork of grants. The Spring Garden Street Connector looks similar at first glance to the one on Race Street, which guides pedestrians along the I-95 underpass. But this one is powered by a prismatic light installation that, according to its designers at the Lighting Practice, “follows the cycle of the sun as it rises and sets each day.”
Read the full article on Billy Penn: The design story behind the new light garden at the Spring Garden El stop
