ENTORA / Projects / Living Sky
Architecture
Living Sky
A kinetic light sky built into the building's frame - the centre opened with the environment already in place.
- Client
- Shopping and leisure centre
- Year
- 2019
- Cycle
- Concept, engineering, fabrication, installation
- Environment effect
- Holds attention · Focal point
A tall, multi-storey atrium in a shopping centre. The client wanted the space to feel alive from the moment the centre opened, and the installation to reach several floors of the atrium at once.
The condition: the solution had to work as a self-contained digital layer of the environment - centrally controlled, renewable without rebuilding and able to withstand many years of use in a shopping centre.
A sky of 532 spheres
532 luminous spheres are suspended on a winch mechanism over an area of 14 by 5 metres. Each sphere travels vertically within a range of 9 metres and is controlled over DMX: height, colour and rhythm are synchronised across shared scenes.
Light and movement work in a single layer above the visitor's head. People look up and pause.
Light that reaches every floor
The 9-metre travel covers the third and fourth floors directly: the spheres physically move between two levels of the atrium. From the first and second floors the installation reads overhead as a sky.
The patterns are programmed to reach every level. Some scenes hold for a time at fourth-floor height, then drop to the third and come into view from the second. The living sky works across the whole atrium, on every floor.
Renewal without intervention
The system holds 20 dynamic lighting scenes: Wave, Pulse, Dawn, Rain, Architect and 15 seasonal and event programmes. The content changes with no physical work on the structure.
The programmes run on a schedule, with no operator involved. The installation stays current for years and needs no later work on site.
Built into the construction
The load-bearing frame is our own design. It was welded into the building's frame before the finishes were closed up. The suspended ceiling, with localised perforation for the cable system, was designed and fabricated within the same project.
The centre opened with the living atrium already up and running, with no separate upgrade phase after construction.
Impact
The atrium renews itself with no further building work
20 dynamic lighting scenes run on a schedule and without an operator; the content changes with no work on the structure. The travel of the spheres and the patterning are set up so the living sky reaches every floor of the atrium. The installation was built into the building's frame during construction - the centre opened with the environment already in place and needs no later upgrade.
- Spheres
- 532, DMX control
- Sphere travel
- 9 m
- Scenes
- 20
- Coverage
- every floor of the atrium
532 spheres, 9 metres of travel, built into the frame
We design the kinetics for your atrium and build them into the frame during construction. The centre opens with the environment already in place and renews itself with no further building work - 20 scheduled scenes do the rest.