Atrium Vestibules
ELFA / Kevan Shaw Lighting Design
Artist: Claire Hope
Client: Multiplex Construction Europe Ltd. and NHS Lothian
Funded by: NHS Lothian Charity’s Tonic Arts Programme
Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity
Designers Kevan Shaw Lighting Design (KSLD) and artist Claire Hope worked to create the atrium lighting installation at the two entrances of the new hospital building. The design is based on embedding the entrance and exit experience in people's memories and reducing two potential moments of stress in a person’s day by simplifying their journey.
Atrium lighting installation at the two entrances of the new hospital building
The glass entrance vestibules at each end of the atrium form physical connections and emotional placemarks on a journey of coming and going. The artwork can be seen from opposite ends of the atrium and most levels internally by the flag of colour high in the wall, reinforcing orientation and identity through colour.
As daylight shines through the transparent paintings a natural sense of time and location is created – colours, shades and shadows shift as time passes. The artists created a similar effect in the evenings by overlaying artificial light. Texture and depth were added in a non-repetitive abstract and natural arrangement to provide distraction for patients, staff and visitors by providing a sense of welcome and an environment devoid of stress.
Claire Hope used abstract, transparent colour washes within the design to provide a sense of the handmade. She describes the space as being about “the play of daylight on the transparent paintings” with a “natural sense of time and location as the colours, shades and shadows shift across the hours”.
