Learning curves

Blackpool is bolstering its reputation as a lighting destination with a son et lumiere installation that posed some tricky design and manufacturing challenges. With video of the installation in action

Journalists are averse to the word ‘unique’, which has become a sloppy synonym for ‘unusual’. The light and sound installation in Blackpool’s Birley Street, however, undoubtedly merits the word and, one suspects, would also be used by the project participants to describe their experience in designing, making and installing it.

The concept of the six giant arches that house the sound and lighting system originated from the idea of a continuous ribbon spiralling in and out of the ground along the street. Each one is 9m high with a foot length of 18.7m and weighs more than eight tonnes.

The light and sound show in the town centre is part of Blackpool’s ambitious regeneration strategy, designed to boost the resort’s reputation as a lighting destination. The aim was to create a night-time attraction that would improve the local environment by day and night, drawing in both local residents and tourists.

Brilliant Brilliance
The idea of a 21st-century son et lumiere came from Blackpool Illuminations concept designer Greg McLenahan of Worldwide Lighting Design (the man behind Blackpool’s giant Mirror Ball) . Brilliance, as the project came to be known, was originally part of the Regeneration by Light initiative, which included the Blackpool Tower Laser (also by McLenahan) and the lighting of Blackpool Town Hall by BDP Lighting.

“The need to include moving head projection with the issues of rain, wind, the saline environment and the prospect of vandalism presented all sorts of challenges"

The main focus was to be on Birley Street itself, with the two streets on either side providing a flavour of the event with gobo projections to pull people in from the surrounding area.

Concept to completion
It was BDP Lighting that developed the idea and liaised with manufacturer DW Windsor on the massive challenge of building the arches. “Realising the aims of the client team was the tricky part,” says BDP’s Brendan Keely. “The need to include moving head projection and sound in the middle of Blackpool with the issues of rain, wind, the saline environment and the prospect of vandalism presented all sorts of challenges. The size and weight of the moving head projectors had to somehow be accommodated, protected and integrated, and it was also necessary to control the general street lighting and dim this at show times while still providing safe access.”

Virtuous drawback
Another difficulty was that the street sits on a concrete raft so it was not possible to dig trenches. This raised issues of how the power and control cabling would run the length of the street to supply each of the arches.

The solution made a virtue of a drawback. A bespoke system, designed and manufactured by DW Windsor, suspends the 350m of trunking, spanning the tops of the arches. Drawing clean lines through the structures, it also acts as a housing for the innovative approach to the street lighting (probably the first time it has been done this way in the UK) , which relies entirely on a series of recessed linear LED fittings (45 strips, each 1m long and with 188 white LEDs) . The clutter of conventional street lighting is avoided and the whole system uses 630W, slicing 60 per cent off earlier energy bills.

Constructing the arches, which have a tubular steel system, designed and manufactured by DW Windsor, skeleton covered by marine-grade aluminium, took DW Windsor into entirely new territory. Apart from the sheer scale of the project and the logistics it entailed, the torsion on each arch meant that all the elements of the aluminium skin had to be shaped and installed individually. The calculations required defeated even sophisticated computer programs.

Monumental task
"This was literally a monumental task," says Terry Dean, managing director of DW Windsor. "At every stage there has been a challenge, from the logistics of manufacturing on such a large scale to the millimetre precision needed to make sure the aluminium cladding panels fitted exactly together."

A steep learning curve - or six - for everyone involved.

Project details

Project: Birley Street, Blackpool
Client: Blackpool Council
Contributing funders: North West Development Agency, European Regional Development Fund
Design and lighting concept: Greg McLenahan, Worldwide Lighting Design/BDP Lighting
Arch manufacturer and street lighting supplier: DW Windsor
Principal contractor: J McCann & Co