7 Canadian Architectural Lighting Projects Vie for International darc Awards
Seven functional lighting installations in architecture from across the country have been shortlisted for the 2016 darc awards program by a panel of international lighting designers. Organized by mondo*arc / darc magazine, the darc awards are the first ever peer-to-peer system for a lighting design awards. Winners are determined by Independent architectural lighting designers and light artists.
Anyone can enter: lighting designers, architects, interior designers or manufacturers.
With each successive competition, all submitted projects and the companies who have submitted them will be present on the website so that, over time, the darc awards website will become a comprehensive online lighting design resource that can be used by designers and clients for inspiration.
The awards will be announced at a gala event in London, U.K. on September 15.
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4+1 categories
Each of the four established categories — Structures, Places, Spaces and Art — is split into Low and High budget (over £30,000 on luminaires) so that the smaller projects can compete on a level playing field in every category.
New this year: a fifth category, Best Creative Lighting Event. It refers to any temporary event or temporary collection of installations where the main medium of expression is light (such as festivals of light, workshops or guerrilla lighting events). There is no Low or High Budget option in this category.
New for 2017: a darc decorative lighting competition. More information will be posted in LDS when it becomes available.
Canadian short-listed entries
Here are the Canadian entries for the 2016 darc awards:
• Eglise Sainte-Agnès, Lac-Mégantic, PQ (structures, high budget). Lighting design: Ombrages. Supplier: Lumenpulse.
• Welland bridge (structures, high budget). Lighting design: Marcel Dion Lighting Design. Main supplier: Philips Lighting.
• Surrey, BC recreation centre (interior, low budget). Lighting design: AES Engineering. Supplier: Lithonia Lighting.
• UBC Student Union Building (interior, low budget). Lighting design: Doug McMillan. Main suppliers: Louis Poulsen, Axis Linea.
• Limehouse Conservation Area (Ontario, light art scheme, low budget). Lighting design: Nargiza. Supplier: GVA Lighting.
• Impulse (Quebec City) (light art, high budget). Lighting design: CS Design. Suppliers: LDI, Natech Lighting.
• Luminous Veil (Bloor-Viaduct bridge in Toronto) (light art, high budget). Lighting design: Mulvey & Banani Lighting. Suppliers: GVA Lighting, Westbury International.
Look who won a 2015 darc award
At the request of Quebec’s Parc de la Gorge de Coaticook, Moment Factory turned a quiet woodland park into a family-friendly nighttime destination. The Foresta Lumina lighting installation created an immersive nighttime attraction that uses sound, light and video projection that brought local myths and legends to life along a 1.5-mile walking path. In the process, the installation won a darc award for best light art installation.
Foresta Lumina exceeded every metric set for success, with 2-hour line-ups for admission, 10 times the number of admissions the client had forecast, and a revitalized brand for the park and the town. Local hotels and restaurants reported huge increases in evening business and overnight stays.
See more photos and a video of the project: http://darcawards.com/architectural/foresta-lumina-canada/.
