Matt Waring

Portland International Airport, USA

Considered a source of pride for the local community, phase one of Portland International Airport’s renovation was revealed this summer. The newly designed space introduces biophilic elements that create a tangible connection to its Pacific Northwestern surroundings. Fisher Marantz Stone collaborated with ZGF Architects in illuminating the new-look terminal.

Seeing your local airport as a beloved source of pride may seem, to many of us at least, an unusual viewpoint to have; but then, Portland is an unusual place.

The slogan “Keep Portland Weird” has come to typify the Oregon city in recent years, and this was one of the driving forces behind the lighting design for the recent renovation and expansion of Portland International Airport (PDX).

“While I’m sure ‘Keep Portland Weird’ means various things to different people, in the context of this project, it reminded us to keep our focus on creating a warm and inviting experience for the traveller that was decidedly in and of the great American Northwest,” said Charles Stone, Founder of Fisher Marantz Stone (FMS), the lead lighting designers on the project. “By that, we mean that our lighting would support a constant connection to nature, the forest in particular, in an environment that tells you that you are home when you arrive in Portland.”

The constant connection to nature, and to Oregon’s beautiful, verdant landscapes, was also a primary design focus for the architects, ZGF, who sought to “evoke the feeling one gets while walking in the forest”.

Jacob Dunn, Principal at ZGF, adds: “The idea of a walk in the forest makes all the sense in the world given where we are in the Pacific Northwest. This drove us down a lot of different pathways, everything from the use of wood, respecting and being good stewards of this important cultural and natural resource, to the way that we think about light in the space, looking at different lighting archetypes and how we experience light as we are taking a hike through the woods.”

Central to this woodland theme, the renovated airport is now characterised by a vast, undulating, nine-acre mass timber roof.

Designed to celebrate Oregon’s history of forest product innovation, the wood used here was all sustainably and locally sourced from landowners and mills within a 300-mile radius of the airport, including sustainably harvested wood from small family forests, community forests and tribal nations.

Expansive glazing, coupled with 49 skylights across the site, provide views of the airfield and the surrounding forested landscape, as well as allowing for ample natural light inside, all further highlighting the design decision to reference the state’s natural beauty and cultivate a strong sense of place within the airport.

Through collaborations with Terrapin Bright Green and landscape architect PLACE, ZGF applied the concept of biophilia holistically throughout the airport. As a result, almost every corner of the terminal features touches of Oregon’s greenery and ample access to natural light. Pathways are filled with trees and plants, with 72 large trees – some up to 25ft tall – located at the seam and throughout the terminal; cascading gardens; and more than 5,000 strategically placed plants. The landscaping provides a sense of wandering through a forest, and acts as a wayfinding tool that guides passengers from security checkpoints to their ultimate destination.

The introduction of this lush greenery also helped to “break down the scale” of the airport and further enhance its position as a “beloved community architectural gem”.

Dunn continues: “We were expanding the footprint of the airport, but we didn’t want to feel like a faceless box, with a giant roof and a bunch of things happening on the ground. ZGF travelled with the PDX leadership to tour the latest and greatest airports, and this was one of the main criticisms – the airports were great, but they felt like people processing machines with one giant roof and a nebulous space below.

“So, the roof and the use of daylight was a big part in terms of defining the rooms within the terminal, and to make it feel like more of an episodic continuum from space to space, with clear thresholds defined by the geometry of the roof, and the experience from the light and skylights as you move through the different spaces.”

Such a clear focus and ambition from the architects meant that realising the lighting concept was relatively straightforward for FMS, as Stone explains: “Fortunately, the architect and landscape architects made it easy for us.

“When you stand in the terminal and look around, you are surrounded by a world of warm timber and oases of green. We provided a balanced illumination of the wonderful natural materials – mostly timber, and the abundant live greenery.”

Central to the lighting design was the introduction of 400 bespoke fixtures, that significantly contribute to the overall warmth of the terminal, highlighting the materiality of the timber roof, as well as providing general illumination to the space.

“The extraordinary custom, individually addressable, die cast aluminium pendant fittings evenly distribute 3000K, warm light onto the undulating roof, while downward light is a cooler 3500K,” Stone continues. “The shape of the fitting was derived from a classical form, but of course the visual texture created by the tines does take us back to one of the initial directives of ‘Keep Portland Weird’. These fixtures are more than a metre across at the top, but in the scale of the Terminal building, they don’t look large at all.”

These custom pendants work alongside a meticulously planned daylighting strategy, which consists of skylights of different shapes and sizes that filter daylight through the mass timber roof’s lattice and large-skylight openings, illuminating 60% of the terminal alongside the custom hanging fixtures.

“The various typologies of skylights were tuned to the ways in which we experience different types of light in the forest, but also in terms of their programmatic requirements for glare and functionality below,” Dunn continues. “We also looked at the way that light registers in a three dimensional field of objects; if you take a typical skylight, it’s just a plane – the roof and a hole – and the light comes through, it doesn’t catch anything other than maybe the skylight curve, but in a forest there are all the different trunks and branches and leaves in the canopy that catch and register that light in unique ways. Even the way that we articulated the lattice so that it would catch and refract and bounce around that light was something that was taken directly from these natural lighting archetypes that we had seen.”

Alongside this, depending on the space below, extra attention was taken to the type of glazing installed. In the ticket hall, for example, the skylights were frosted with frit to create more of a diffuse daylight effect, akin to the morning fog of a coastal forest. This, Dunn explained, served two purposes: it evoked another forest-like feeling, and also reduced the amount of glare for staff working in the ticket hall below.

Further to this, ZGF and FMS collaborated on some very sophisticated calculations and metrics surrounding the light levels and energy efficiency.

Dunn explains: “We had a couple of metrics and goals that were set forward, partially driven by our certification requirements, but also thinking about what the right metrics are to help drive us to create the right kind of space in terms of the way that it felt, and then also how much energy we saved. We knew that the daylighting was one of the key energy efficiency saving measures that we were employing, so we really wanted to make sure that we had enough light that made a significant impact on the energy use of the building as well.

“Usually, what we would do is look at spatial daylight autonomy, daylight simulation metrics, and generally there’s a single point in time in metrics where we use computer simulation to say, ‘during 9.00am on the Equinox, how much of this floorplan gets above a certain threshold of footcandles?’

“Then at some point, our calculation processes got more sophisticated. We said, ‘we care about 9.00am on the Equinox, but we also care about every hour the space is occupied’. We looked at annual simulations, which just explodes the way that we have to think about it, because now it’s a temporal metric over space. Our threshold became that we wanted there to be a 50% spatial daylight autonomy, which means 50% of the space is adequately lit for more than 50% of the time, and that then becomes a good benchmark that says it is going to feel like it’s daylit for most of the time, and we’re going to achieve those daylight savings.

“However, Portland is a really interesting animal – we have predominantly cloudy winters, and almost completely sunny summers, and the annual metric hides a lot of the nuance around designing for these conditions. This was all conversations that we had with Charles and the FMS team about what we use to drive this; we ended up focussing on the cloudy condition, because we know that we want the place to feel daylit on a typical cloudy Portland day in the wintertime.

“We also looked at very detailed tracking simulations and tools and methodologies to make sure that the sun was in the right place at the right time. Charles was a huge help with this, because when we were looking at what kind of visual contrast ratio is going to be acceptable versus painful in this situation, he could use his experience to say roughly what we should be shooting for.”

Speaking of the collaborative process between the architects and lighting designers, particularly on the daylighting strategy, Stone adds: “We spent a great deal of time together considering the roof apertures, the nature of the curves of the ceiling, dimensions and colour of the timber, treatment of the space above the timber slats, and other aspects of materiality, reflectivity, and aperture characteristics.

“We also carefully considered the character of the glazing, the overall light transmission, and the external shielding strategy; all around the compass of the curtain wall perimeter of the Terminal. Consideration of contrast ratios and glare were of paramount concern in our studies. A 365-day, quantative daylight analysis was performed. Physical models were built and studied. Yes, we spent a lot of time together on daylighting.”

On the sustainability targets, Stone added: “Of course PDX is a LEED (pursuing Gold) building and uses all LED sources – but so is every large project today. I think the magic of the sustainability of the lighting is in the daylighting design and its integration with electric light. ZGF produced exhaustive studies to ensure that the design maximises daylight utilisation. This is quite a challenge in the Portland climate where winters are grey and dark, and summers are replete with abundant sunshine and long days. The controls system designed by PAE is the other piece of the puzzle. As the system is commissioned and finetuned, PDX will substantially reduce electrical lighting costs.”

The abundant natural light in the space, coupled with over 70 fully mature trees and more than 5,000 plants throughout the interior landscape, strengthens the project’s biophilic ambitions, which also included more “indirect experiences of nature”, such as the non-uniform wood grain in the roof beams, the “biomorphic forms” of the domes and roof vaults, and even the “water ripple pattern” in the flooring, designed to evoke the flow and movement of the Columbia River, which runs through the Pacific Northwest.

The lighting further contributes to this feeling, particularly after dark, when the electric lighting can take centre stage. “If you walk about the terminal at night, you will see our dappled light concept in the areas of the trees and other greenery,” Stone adds. “We were able to introduce a higher contrast ratio to enhance visual interest than you would find in most airports. There is also crucial supplemental horticultural lighting.”

All of these design decisions help contribute to an environment that, in a marked contrast to typical airport settings, alleviates stress – something that was of primary concern for all parties involved.

“A big goal for the port was to destress the experience of travel, because often it is way too stressful,” says Dunn. “A good example of this is in one of my favourite spaces of the airport, right after you go through security and into the ‘recomposure area’, where you’re putting your belt and shoes back on. In most airports, you have to carry your tub to a crappy bench at the end of a security line or tucked away in the corner – it’s the least dignified experience after going through security. But for PDX, it’s a wonderful experience.

“You go through security, which has a higher ceiling with lower equipment, that creates a vista that pulls you through and makes it feel more open. There are then custom benches that are a series of planters either flush with the ground, or raised up to form seating, so when you’re around these full grown trees that are underneath this beautiful skylight, the sun’s coming in, it’s hitting those trees and creating a dappled light effect that connects you to nature as you go through this experience that could be really stressful. That is a perfect example of how, by being more biophilic, you create a better experience than the typical recomposure experience that you get from other airports.”

As a well-seasoned traveller, Stone agrees that the new design of the terminal has contributed greatly to an altogether more harmonious aesthetic. He adds: “I truly believe that the variety of visual experiences we helped create at PDX is going to make it a traveller’s favourite. Every time I walk through the Terminal, I say ‘Oh, wow!’. I’m a rather jaded, ‘millions of miles’ traveller, and PDX still thrills me.”

Another feature Stone was particularly impressed by was ZGF’s decision to prefabricate the new roof right next to the existing building, meaning that the airport could remain fully operational while the renovation was taking place.

Dunn explains this process in more detail: “One of the goals for the project was that we could not impact flight schedules at all – all work had to be done while the airport was 100% operational. This was a challenge, but it was achieved through the prefab onsite, next to the terminal building. This meant that it could be getting erected, and demolition could be happening at the same time. We would then move the new roof across the airfield by crane between 12 and four in the morning when there were no aeroplanes. It then took around two days for them to get connected to the building, which made it possible to keep it operational throughout.”

“The architect’s solution of building the new terminal roof at the other end of the airport, then moving it over the existing Terminal, and demolishing the old is just brilliant,” Stone adds. “We basically designed most of our work for a ‘new’ building. Tremendous cost savings were achieved by the overlapping construction technique; and the freedom it gave the design team helped produce a stunning result.”

Indeed, the completed part of the project – phase one of two – showcases what can be achieved when both architects and lighting designers push towards the same, biophilic goal. The marriage between architecture and lighting across the renovated terminal creates an atmosphere rarely seen in airports – one of rejuvenation and warmth.

Dunn was effusive in his praise of the lighting design, and the way in which it enhances the materiality of the architecture: “It is an incredible design – it reminds me of some of the cathedrals that I visited in Europe when studying abroad, it’s so thoughtfully designed.

“I love the hanging pendant strategy to give additional space to the occupied zone, to mediate that space between us and the roof structure with the combination of down and up lighting. This also reflects a nuanced understanding of how we experience light in the space. The uplighting of the pendant to light the bottom part of the domes of the roof was a fantastic move to be able to celebrate the architecture, and to engage with the way we experience light through surface brightness – through luminance vs illuminance. Overall, it animates the space in a way that is referential to the architecture, and also the way that we experience life.”

Stone adds: “The final product really looks like the renderings, and verifies the quantitative studies that were done. We built so many models and mock ups of the pendant light fitting and the ceiling that we knew exactly how it was going to look – except for the massive scale, I wasn’t prepared for that.

“We ran a many-stepped, reiterative design process. I am pleasantly surprised, but I had a lot of faith in the studies that we did. The effect of the warm, glowing roof, its visually interesting patterns, the curious and unique pendant, and the greater than average contrast ratios, are the secret sauce. The response from the travelling public has been fantastic too – Portland has something new to be proud of.”

Speaking of pride, Dunn shares how he has seen, first hand, the positive response from the local community towards the new-look terminal. “I was dropping my son off at school, and one of the other parents in our group said ‘has anybody seen the new Portland airport? It’s incredible,’ and they said to me, not knowing that I had worked on it, that they were moved to tears. That was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” he says.

“We knew it was a high risk, high reward kind of project. There was a lot of pressure to do a good job, because we knew the stakes and how much the community loved this airport, but we couldn’t be happier with the way that it turned out.”

Such local pride in an airport may seem weird to some of us, but Portland is a weird place. Let’s keep it that way.

www.fmsp.com
www.zgf.com

by Matt Waring

At-Turaif, Saudi Arabia

The UNESCO World Heritage site of At-Turaif has been given a sympathetic lighting scheme from Speirs Major Light Architecture, that magically transports visitors back in time to the 15th century.

In the desert to the northwest of Riyadh, on a raised site at the edge of the ad-Dir’iyah oasis, lies At-Turaif – an ancient, labyrinthian city that dates back to the 15th century.

Regarded as one of the more important political and historical sites in Saudi Arabia, At-Turaif represents the “capital of Saudi dynasty”, was the original home of the Saudi royal family, and the country’s first capital from 1727 until Ottoman control of the area in the mid-1800s.

Now, the historical district, characterised by its Najdi architectural style, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and has been subject to an extensive restoration programme that aims to transform the space into an open museum, showcasing its rich history.

As part of this ongoing restoration, Speirs Major Light Architecture (SMLA) was brought into the project, with the goal of bringing the epic scale and historical significance of the district to life after dark through a beautifully layered and nuanced tapestry of golden light.

Through a rich, amber, “apricot” light, the lighting designers hoped to articulate the stories hidden in the layers of buildings, courtyards, and architectural remnants across the near 10,000sqm site, capturing and reflecting the site’s extraordinary spirit, and creating a remarkable experience of a living national monument.

Speaking to arc, Keith Bradshaw, CEO and Senior Partner at SMLA, reflects on the unique atmosphere of the space: “We’ve never done anything quite like this before, because it isn’t just a building, it’s a small city. The story of the place is one of its most poignant aspects, because in and of itself, it is a ruin, but as with most ruins, there is a mythology and a certain spirit to the place. It is a site that is potent with atmosphere.

“As a piece of architecture, and as a place, it is imbued with something – not to compare it to Stonehenge, but it has that kind of spiritual energy, and because of that it is precious. The opportunity to create the after-dark experience of such a special and significant site is a rare honour. As a practice, we have been fortunate enough to work on several exceptional sites, including the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, and the Dom Tower in Utrecht. Our learning from those projects helped to inform our approach at At-Turaif. We are fascinated by the stories and memories that live within these unique places, and how we can use light as a narrative tool to draw them out, creating a meaningful connection between people, place, and architecture.”

Bringing the stories and historical significance of the site to life was a central focus of SMLA’s “thought piece” for At-Turaif – a narrative document that delved into the overall concept of the lighting scheme, requested by the Diriyah Company, the project client.

“We started by thinking about the way that light could amplify the story of the place, as much as we understood at that early stage, how we could bring this remnant of a civilisation back to life. We wanted to use light to show the spirit of what was there.”

While Bradshaw and the SMLA team understood the history of the site from the outset, it wasn’t until they walked among the ancient walls of the city that they began to fully appreciate the significance and regard with which the Saudi people held At-Turaif.

“What really brought it to life for me was when we walked around the site with a few of the tour guides, who told us the stories of what would have happened on various sites, the economy of the city, and how it worked. As with most heritage projects, the more you can understand or empathise with the people that lived there and how it operated, the more inspiring it becomes.

“We could see that it really meant a lot to the Saudi people too. By talking to them, we got a sense for how significant a project it was for them.”

Coupled with the strong cultural weight of the project, the client also had some very stringent expectations for the lighting design. To meet these, SMLA created an incredibly detailed plan of the site, using a LIDAR scan of the city, into which the team added the various textures, tones and shadows.

Bradshaw continues: “It was a very sophisticated visualisation, way beyond anything that we had done before. Once we had this pure, three-dimensional, textured model of the project, we could set the viewing angles exactly as the client wanted and show them how it would look up close, from two-kilometres away, five-kilometres away, and so on. It was an amazingly detailed concept.

“Our job then, beyond the concept, was to bring that into being with real light, real tones, real textures. We created a scheme where, from these distances, the elevations look amazing, but also, when you’re actually in the place, walking the streets, you become really immersed in it. It becomes this timeless space that feels as it did 500 years ago.

“You can create amazing images with light – subtle layering between one surface and the next. When you are looking at is effectively 20, 30, or 40 façades together, you have to find a balance, and so much of this project was about finding the appropriate three-dimensional balance.

“It was very challenging to ensure that what looks beautiful from afar, also feels beautiful when you are there. That when you are walking down those streets you feel the magic of the space.”

The rough materiality of the handmade, mud-brick walls throughout the city contributes a great deal to the ambience. Described by Bradshaw as a “gift” to graze with light, the walls of At-Turaif exemplify the rich history and story of the space. SMLA therefore, along with the client, wanted to find the perfect colour temperature to showcase this unique aspect of the site further.

“The first time we went there, it was sunset, and it was spectacular. We were immediately enchanted by this very particular, almost sand putty material, with a very fine grain texture. We’ve never lit anything quite as freeform and imperfect as that before.

“As soon as we saw that tone of sunset begin to hit the surfaces, it just popped, it resonated. It was like the space was telling us, ‘This is the light that I look good in’. That’s where this specific warm, rose gold, apricot light came from. It is right at the edge of a monochrome light where you feel that you are enveloped in an intense golden glow.”

Iain Ruxton, Associate Partner at SMLA, explains the painstaking process that the lighting designers went through before reaching this particular tone of light: “There was a lot of experimentation at the beginning of the project, when we did a large-scale mock-up to sell the idea to the client. At that point, we had enough lights installed where we could play around with colour and find the right combination. It took quite some extensive playing around before we found a solution that we were happy with, to then take to the client.

“Colour is an interesting thing, as although the site is relatively homogenous in terms of material, there is still quite a lot of variation. The mix of light that gives you the right colour on one wall doesn’t necessarily look right on another, because it is a slightly different colour. There’s more subtlety in it than you might think, from finding the right colour points and getting the client agreement, to walking in around the site, checking the levels and colours of each fixture and finetuning them. It’s not a theatre stage; there’s nowhere you can stand and see everything. Every single light was personally visited and focused. It was an incredibly fine grain of focusing effort that we had to do – a really complicated site to get focused up and programmed properly.”

Indeed, the placement of the luminaires themselves – around 2,500 Martin Professional fixtures – was integral to the success of the lighting scheme, and in creating the magical glow that SMLA desired.

“It was very important to remove the 21st century as much as possible,” says Bradshaw. “We wanted the light to feel like it was coming from the buildings and the walls themselves, which meant that we had to be very clever. Most of the luminaires are on the ground, so it feels like the city is glowing from the bottom up – and it is done in a very discreet way, with appropriately concealed fittings.”

“The fixtures have double casements, and are semi-recessed into the gravel that lies between the heritage wall, which we could not touch at all, and the street itself,” adds Adrien Flouraud, Design Associate at SMLA. “The gravel acts as drainage, as during the rainy season the site is susceptible to flash flooding, so we had to be sure that our casements were fully drainable as well. The luminaires from Martin are very robust and can handle this very well. From the 47° heat to the flash flooding, the amount of failure or return we have seen is absolutely minimal.

“But nothing is fixed anywhere, almost everything is only held in place by gravity, there are no screws, no drilling, nothing.”

A site of this scale, with such a high number of luminaires, called for a large-scale, extensive control network – something that could have been a challenge given the sensitivity and remote nature of the site. However, Ruxton says that establishing the control network was more straightforward than first expected: “We were quite lucky with the amount of electrical infrastructure and IT networks that were already on-site. There was a sitewide, high-capacity fibre optic network around the site already, with many small technical rooms around the site servicing the existing security camera network, cafés, point of sale, and so on. Luckily, we were able to reuse this network.

“There is one control system, but it is distributed through a number of controllers that are networked together. It all runs on Pharos, and the way that Pharos works means that it scales very well – you can put multiple controllers together and once set up, it all behaves as one. This gave us a bit more resilience and helped us a lot in the stage-by-stage commissioning.”

The control network is also flexible enough to factor in further expansion, as the recovery and restoration of At-Turaif continues.

“The whole city as you see it now is 95% complete, and there are potentially more bits and pieces to come in the future as more of the site continues to be rediscovered,” explains Bradshaw. “There is an ambition over the coming years to reveal more of the archaeology, as there is still a huge amount to be discovered. This is going to be fascinating for us to continue thinking about lighting on the other areas of the project.

“Factoring in the future development around the site we needed to look at not only the visitor experience, but also the views,” adds Flouraud. “We know that there will be further residential developments on the nearby wadi, so we have created scenes that are ready for this. Nobody can see them now, but effectively in our designs they are ready. There are some people who, in five year’s time, are going to be living in homes that don’t exist yet but when they move in they will find they get an amazing view every night.”

While the core focus of the lighting scheme is on the rich, warm amber lighting, the design also includes a special activation that reflects the importance of the lunar calendar in the Muslim faith. Each month, celebrating the new moon, the lighting shifts to a shade of blue externally, with the warm light remaining within. “The resonance of those opposites of silver against amber is just beautiful,” says Bradshaw.

Finding the perfect shade of blue for the ‘Full Moon’ scenario took another several rounds of finetuning and reviewing until all parties were satisfied, but the result creates a remarkable contrast. Flouraud continues: “When you shift to the Blue Moon theme, there is a real ‘village’ feel of what is inside the walls, contrasting with the outer façade. We had to be very precise to be sure that the inside walls were at the right level and not overlit compared to the outer walls. It was a lot of tuning between all these internal and external elements.”

The efforts that SMLA have gone to in illuminating At-Turaif have resulted in a scheme that beautifully showcases this landmark structure. In its raised position, the site is the major focal point in the landscape when viewed from the developing Diriyah Project across Wadi Hanifah. Balancing the external identity and the views and experience within the monument is at the heart of the design, and this is something that Ruxton feels has been successfully realised.

“Of course, it needs to look amazing when viewed from outside the site, but it also needs to be amazing to be inside and to wander about and experience it. These two quite different objectives that are not the easiest things to balance, but I think in the end we were very successful at that. We think it looks great, everybody else seems to think that it looks great; almost as importantly, it feels great. If you are in it and walking around exploring it, it feels magical at night, so I think we’ve done it justice in that respect.”

Bradshaw adds that the cultural significance of the space, and how the lighting adds to this, is what stands out to him. “It’s a real privilege to be able to work on a national monument that means so much to people.

“What I am most proud of is that when we talk to the Saudi people that were briefing us about the spiritual feel and importance of the place, they say that when you are there, it feels like we brought that to life. The people that I felt really helped us to understand the brief properly have said to us that it is exactly what they wanted us to create, and that it makes them feel very emotional, which is something that people don’t often express in our world of architectural lighting; it is not just clever, it is emotional, which is very special.”

www.smlightarchitecture.com

by Matt Waring