Making Light of the Situation: Lighting Challenges Create Opportunities for Art
Lighting architecture is not without its unique challenges, as the design team of the new nine-story multi-use Consolidated Rental Car Facility at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Airport found when faced with factors, such as budgetary constraints and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concerns, that forced them to refocus their design strategies. But the project is better for it, thanks to the highly collaborative process between architect Spillis Candela DMJM, electrical engineer Steven Feller + Associates, and manufacturers’ representative Lighting Dynamics. The facility, which provides for a future automated people mover, is the largest and most sophisticated of its kind in the nation to date; and, at 4.4 million square feet, is one of the largest single structures in Florida. It accommodates 12 rental car companies with garage space for 9,000 cars.
The facility’s close proximity to the airport merited special consideration for the project’s exterior lighting scheme. The FAA was concerned that uplighting the façade would create glare and potentially interfere with aircraft landings. Additionally, budgetary constraints forced the designers to be creative with options for the façade lighting, which evolved into a carefully articulated louvered metal screen compatible with the airport context, specifically the terminal building opposite, but avoiding the look of a typical parking garage.
Because the facility serves as a gateway to the airport, the architects wanted to create an iconic structure, which they discovered by focusing their efforts inward: they made the building glow from within, thus eliminating the need for exterior fixtures and potential glare. By mounting economical garage luminaires behind the louvered façade system, the backlit surface appears translucent, creating an effect that is both mysterious and dramatic.
“The most complex lighting challenge on the project,” according to Spillis Candela project director Ron Pales, was the illumination of the bus canopy, which is constructed of a space frame lined with thick frosted glass. Though its main purpose is to provide shelter, the illuminated canopy activates the ground plane, becoming an architectural feature through the use of ambient lighting. To achieve this effect, the architects and electrical engineers chose architectural floodlights with medium-flood optics controlled by external barn doors. Attached to pipes on top of the space frame, the fixtures are aimed downward and diffused by the frosted glass.
When modeling the canopy and calculating photometrics, the engineers had to consider the slope and curve of the space frame, as well as the ascending angle of the glass. The fixtures required careful aiming that took into account the transmission quality of the glass. The engineers also had to avoid over-lighting the area, so that the canopy’s glow would not interfere with the color-illuminated entry portals, located directly behind and on either side of the canopy.
The façade is punctuated by six entryways. Titled “Luminous Portals,” these sculptural elements were designed by New York-based James Carpenter Design Associates, who was selected by Broward County as part of its Art in Public Places program. The angled portals are constructed of aluminum panels lined with crystalline glass and backlit by LEDs. As visitors pass through and the doors slide open, the fixtures are activated and cycle through a sequence of eight colors, including hot pink, green, blue, and purple.
The portals celebrate the “act of passage,” while creating an interstitial entry space that mediates between the busy exterior and the active lobby, all the while responding to both vehicular and pedestrian scales. Kate Wyberg McClellan, project manager with James Carpenter Design Associates, explains, “The portals become luminous markers along the roadway, as well as visual connections to the arrivals area of the main airport terminal.”
Inside the vast lobby space, code restraints forced the architects to reconsider their original scheme of a perforated-metal-concealed high-wattage pendant lighting system. However, Spillis Candela lead designer Michael Kerwin found an unconventional solution through a classic medium—the napkin sketch. Kerwin’s design involved “light cubes” placed in a seemingly random arrangement to lend texture to the lobby’s high ceiling and to provide a contrasting shape to the curvilinear form of the space.
The architects worked closely with the electrical engineer to ensure that the lighting was distributed evenly, a task that was complicated by the non-linear spacing of the fixtures, as well as by the sheer size of the two-story lobby. A prototype for the “light cube” was constructed from a standard 2-foot-square recessed industrial metal halide fixture. The architects then worked with Shaper Lighting to replace the prismatic glass lens with a 2-foot-square acrylic cube. However, the design team encountered a roadblock when the building inspector refused to approve the fixture due to concerns about the acrylic cube attachment to the fixture. Because the architects had, in effect, designed a new luminaire, it was not UL listed; however, the fixture was put through the UL process and finally approved.
Beyond the lobby, curved and textured corridor walls provided an opportunity for drama and shadow through wall-washing. However, the mechanical equipment, fire sprinkler pipes, and other building system components had to be located within the dropped ceiling, leaving no room for recessed fixtures. Instead, the architects created a special detail—a reverse soffit—to house the wide-beam downlights. The result is a ceiling that appears to float.
The lighting design of the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Consolidated Rental Car Facility unfolded as the project evolved and is an integral component of its architecture. Yet the lighting became an entity unto itself: In some instances fixtures serve as volumes, while at other moments they disappear entirely to highlight the structure’s form. The building itself is sculptural, but the way in which it is lit makes it an art form.
