Platinum Lighting Projects and Light Art Design · 2023
Light Up the Love River Bay Art Exterior Lighting
- A' Design Award 2023 Platinum Winner in Lighting Projects and Light Art Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- CLIENT: Kaohsiung City Government
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 791,870
- Verification code 863B9B508B · Verify this award
About Light Up the Love River Bay Art Exterior Lighting
Light Up the Love River Bay is an exterior lighting project for the Love River Bay in Kaohsiung. The project is divided into three sections. Architectural luminaires light the riverbanks over a wide area and change color slowly. Concert lighting on the Kaohsiung Music Center changes color quickly in time with music. Meteor lights form eleven hexagonal installations that recall islands between the seas, covering 3,300 square meters on the water. The cross-harbor light of the Great Tiger Bridge spans 400 meters. Residents can select the riverbank colors through an application.
Kaohsiung City Government's Light Up the Love River Bay Art Exterior Lighting exemplifies the contemporary phenomenon of urban placemaking through sophisticated lighting design, representing an ambitious integration of architectural illumination, floating sculptural elements, and environmental light art that transforms a harbor waterfront into a dynamic nocturnal destination. The project appears to engage with international traditions of festival lighting while establishing its own distinctive visual vocabulary through the deployment of geometric floating installations that suggest both traditional lantern symbolism and contemporary digital aesthetics. The undulating pavilion structure, rendered in warm coral and vermillion tones, demonstrates remarkable integration between architectural form and lighting strategy, with the illumination following and accentuating the wavelike roofline to create an effect reminiscent of bioluminescent marine organisms or glowing embers. The vertical light beams arranged along the waterfront promenade establish a processional rhythm that guides movement while creating dramatic upward gestures toward the evening sky, perhaps referencing the historical tradition of beacon fires or lighthouse illumination that has marked harbors throughout maritime history. Technical accomplishment manifests in the careful calibration of color temperatures, with warm architectural lighting complementing rather than competing with the cooler cyan installations, demonstrating sophisticated understanding of chromatic harmony across the expanded nocturnal palette. The floating hexagonal and eye-shaped light sculptures introduce an element of wonder and mystery, their geometric precision contrasting with the organic movement of water while their reflections double their visual presence. This installation invites consideration of how public lighting design might simultaneously honor cultural traditions, embrace technological innovation, and create spaces of collective experience that transcend the merely functional to achieve the genuinely transformative.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The design team used a cooler color temperature and colored light to echo the building form and future vision. The exhibition is divided into three sections (METAFLOWS - Light Islands), which echoes the impression of waves; the (Great Tiger Bridge), which challenges the distance between the lights and the audience; and (Kaohsiung Music Center), which perfectly combines the music, lights, and the scenery of the riverbank of the Love River. The design team uses (light) to link the Kaohsiung Music Center and the Love River basin to light up Kaohsiung.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- There are three sections in the (Light up the Love River Bay). The first is the light of the sound of Kaohsiung Music Center. It combines light and music, extending to the riverbank, the sea, and the sky. The second is the cross-harbor light of the Great Tiger Bridge, which crosses from the Love Pier to the Glorious Pier, spanning 400 meters to connect the world and look back at our city. The eleven hexagonal installations symbolize the islands that lie between the seas, and the 3,300 square meters of light art installations on the sea reflect the new urban architecture of the harbor.
- Tags
- Kaohsiung Music Center, Kaohsiung, Love River Bay, Pier, Lantern Festival.
- Production Technology
- The Love River Bay in Kaohsiung has a profound cultural and historical background. The design team uses lighting as a medium to further promote the comprehensive tourism development of Kaohsiung. The Kaohsiung Music Center, which is an important tourist spot in Kaohsiung, will become the central part of all the lighting systems. Furthermore, it links the Kaohsiung Music Center and the Love River Bay with (light) to create a landmark of (Asia New Bay Area) and (the Love River basin).
- Design Challenge
- Three different types of lighting are installed in the exhibition: the lights installed on the riverbank are architectural luminaires, which can illuminate a large area, have a mild effect, and change colors slowly. The landmark, Kaohsiung Music Center, uses concert lighting that can change colors precisely, create a strong visual effect, and change itself quickly with the music. Finally, the installation art uses meteor lights, which can present a more delicate illumination. In a large exhibition space, it is a challenge to integrate these three types of lighting with different characteristics.
- Project Duration
- The project finished in February 2021 in Love River Bay, Kaohsiung City.
- Operation Flow
- Combines music, light, and Kaohsiung's local culture while it presents the concept of the main light as a river. The audience can see the perfect composition and picture from a distance. From the combination of river, bay, building, and island, between light, dark, and color, the imagination and boundary of light are unlocked. The light environment of the Love River can be linked through intelligent technology to program the light effect of the whole area. The color of the riverbank can be decided online through an app, making the interaction between the ambient light and the residents flexible.
- Research
- As the cradle of local music, the Lantern Festival lights up Love River Bay with (light), focusing on the Kaohsiung Music Center. This is a way for people to see that all the artists who work hard for music are developing the culture that belongs to modern Taiwan. Light is hope, light is energy, light is guidance, and light is a transmission. Light leads people to recall the beauty of the past, and once again brings the connection between the river and the people of Kaohsiung, making Kaohsiung move forward to a future full of glory.
- Inspiration
- With the 2022 Taiwan Lantern Festival celebrating the Chinese Lantern Festival, the design team used the characteristics of "light" to illuminate this beautiful gem and convey the vitality with light. Finally, the Kaohsiung Music Center was established at the end of 2021 at the river mouth, and the light will be stretched from the upper reaches of the Love River Bay to Kaohsiung Music Center, gathering the enthusiasm of Kaohsiung people and coalescing in Kaohsiung Music Center and turning a river into the main light of the lantern festival.
- Image Credits
- Kaohsiung City Government