Press Release
September 13, 2013
LED Linear, Architectural FX and Arup electrify the luminous
limbs of atmos’s inhabitable tree for the City of London Festival.
The Mobile Orchard is an inhabitable public art installation by atmos. It's a
hymn to the urban fruit tree - a celebration of the theme explored this year by
its commissioners, the City of London Festival.
Its exuberant design mutates the wonder of natural trees with a structure that seek to
nourish all the senses - celebrating both the geometric structures of nature, and the
social structures of cities.
It previewed in Paternoster Square before commencing a weekly journey that stopped
at Devonshire Square, the Gherkin, and Finsbury Avenue Square. By day it offered
shade from the summer sun; by night it pulsed with an internal electric rhythm, its
luminous veins illuminating the path to a constellation of lights in its limbs.
LED Linear, Architectural FX and Arup sponsored all the lighting, equipment and
brainpower that brought the Mobile Orchard to life.
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
Seite 1
Press Release September 13, 2013
The Taxonomy of the Tree
The Mobile Orchard centres on a sculptural timber oasis that doubles as immersive
summer street furniture - morphing into seating, shelter, stairway and sky-throne. Its
undulating roots offer a landscape for lounging, including sinuous benches and a
molten armchair that cradles the gaze upwards through the hollow trunk.
Massive branches worm outwards from a dramatically leaning trunk to offer further
seats, splaying to form steps that spiral upwards around the undulating trunk to a
throne at the tip. The trunk houses a miniature DMX processor that instructs the
illumination of its bark with glowing Xylem. Waterproof, flexible LED veins unite sky
and soil, their sinuous lines graphically delineating the segments of the tree's core
geometry, each terminating in a glowing spot of LED moon-light.
A lightweight latticework of curved and folded aluminium unfurls from the laminated
plywood grains to support a canopy of clear lasercut leaves that glisten in the light
from sun above & LED below.- Each blade was waste-lessly cut in the shape of a
local London borough, with the host borough further subdivided into wards - the
blossom and seeds of the project. These branches cradle a constellation of Braeburn
apples, refreshed as quickly as the local City workers can pluck and eat them.
The man-made tree was donated to Trees for Cities, who plan to tour it across Britain
for 5 years, while its attendant choir of young fruit trees have been donated to the
City's first orchard, and to a host of local London schools to start their own orchards.
Illuminating the Orchard
Lighting was crucial to enhance the Orchard once the sun had set - especially given
the nocturnal working hours of its host City borough. Lighting sponsors Architectural
FX, LED Linear and ARUP worked seamlessly and tirelessly to make the night-time
tree even more spectacular than the day - a reward to all those late-night workers and
revellers, but also a celebration of human ingenuity and thought, and our more manmade systems beyond day-time nature alone. As with natural trees, the trunk
Seite 2
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
Press Release September 13, 2013
became the central nervous system of the organism, sending signals up and down its
length to trigger its luminous tips. LED strips became geometric Xylem, pulsing with
life, feeding the sky-borne leaf-like spots in the boughs above.
The tree's powerful sculptural geometry formed the perfect showcase for LED
Linear’s VarioLED Flex Venus. A very challenging installation environment and the
constant relocation of the Orchard combined to push the resilience of the product to
its outer limits. Venus’s beautiful lines of light gracefully delineate and illuminate all
the sections along the length of the trunk and branches, like an anatomical X-ray.
Venus’s unique flexible form allowed an unprecedented freedom of expression, and
LED Linear's ability to delivery precisely manufactured custom luminaires within a
very tight time frame allowed the designer's incredible vision to become a stunningly
elegant reality.
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
Seite 3
Press Release September 13, 2013
Co-sponsor Wibre's recessed IP67 micro-spots combined massive light output with
maximum miniaturisation, and a minute housing robust enough to survive in an
external installation. Their tiny form was crucial in realising the design intent of long,
slender branches - small enough that they could be housed in the tips of the tree
branches, their wiring snaking through cavities cleverly concealed in the plywood
slices.
The DMX programming brought the tree to life, separating the trunk's 12 main
segments into 12 channels through which the light rotated like the hand of a clock,
steadily thickening until a sheet of light enwrapped the whole, with the movement
travelling through the nested spotlights like the delicate fluttering of fireflies. The clock
accelerated until a climax every 15 minutes - a visual accompaniment to the City's
surrounding church bells, with a dramatic thunderstorm climax on the hour, every
hour.
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
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Press Release September 13, 2013
Designer's Statement
The design of the Mobile Orchard furthers atmos's ongoing investigations of natural
forms, organic structures, experiential ergonomics, digital fabrication, and innovative
public landscapes. It was parametrically designed using scripts and algorithms that
explore the mathematical rules of growth so brilliantly exemplified by nature, enabling
an unprecedented level of highly-resolved complexity.
"This project was a unique opportunity for us to really grapple with the extraordinary
beauty and complexity of trees. We've been designing projects that reference them whether explicitly or unconsciously - for years, but never had the chance to share the
stage with them, until now. Our initial arboreal research into tree growth patterns and
geometries was extensive, inspirational and highly generative , and helped us literally
grow this project from seed. Just as a tree benefits from a multitude of nutrients to aid
its growth, the Mobile Orchard benefitted from an extraordinary ecology of people and
organisations, who all played a vital symbiotic role in helping bring the project to life.
Stuart Knox from Architectural FX was particularly crucial, offering incredible
thoughtfulness, ingenuity, generosity and perseverance, partnering with the brilliant
LED Linear and Wibre to do everything possible to acheive excellence and make the
project a success. " (Alex Haw, Director, atmos)
Resources
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
TreesforCities' webpage on the project:
http://www.treesforcities.org/about-us/20th-birthday/mobile-orchard/
Designer's webpage on the project:
http://www.atmosstudio.com/mobile-orchard
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos (a@atmosstudio.com, t: +44 (0)7815 040 619) for
imagery requests, interviews and media matters
PR contact person LED Linear UK: Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888, UK@led-linear.com
Seite 5
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
Press Release September 13, 2013
Itinerary
1st July: Devonshire Square, EC2M 4TH
8th July: St Mary Axe, London EC3A 8EP
15th July: New Street Square, London EC4A 3BF
22nd July: Finsbury Avenue Square, London EC2M 2PG
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/yuIzc
Project Team
Design: atmos
Structural Engineering: Blue Engineering
Lighting Design: Arup
Lighting Lead Sponsor: Architectural FX
LED strips sponsor: LED Linear
LED spots sponsor: Wibre
Fabrication: Nicholas Alexander + volunteers
Client: City of London Festival
Festival Tree Sponsor: Bloomberg
Funding Partner: Arts Council England
Hosts: Broadgate Estates, Devonshire Square Management, Land Securities, 30 St
Mary Axe Management Company Ltd
Notes to Editors
The City of London Festival brings the City's unique buildings and outdoor spaces
to life each summer, with an extensive artistic programme of music, visual arts, film,
walks and talks - much of it free. It commissioned the Mobile Orchard for 2013 as part
of an ongoing annual campaign to raise awareness of environmental issues through
artistic responses to the natural world - focusing this year on urban trees. 64 real
trees, donated by the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers, will accompany the
construction around the City - 12 of which will be planted at Middlesex Street Estate
to form the City of London’s first community orchard; the remainder to be distributed
to schools around the capital. The sculpture will be gifted to the Festival’s partner
charity Trees for Cities as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations, and tour the
country. http://www.colf.org/
atmos is a multidisciplinary practice creating innovative works of art, architecture,
design, spanning scales and media. They design buildings and objects, installations
and landscapes – conjuring meaningful, pleasurable, and enduring experiences.
Much of their work involves cutting-edge design and fabrication technologies,
complex structures, and digital mapping, exploring the connectivity of people to their
precise place in the world. They believe you can have both complex meaning &
incontestable beauty. www.atmosstudio.com
LED Linear develops and manufactures high quality linear lighting systems based on
LED for technically sophisticated interior and exterior lighting. Main products are
linear and scalable lighting modules and systems based on LED and with an ingress
protection from IP00 up to IP68. The product portfolio consists of various lighting
systems, which have been nominated for and granted prestigious international design
awards. On the basis of the modular LED tool kit more than 2,5 million lighting fixtures
Seite 6
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
Press Release September 13, 2013
can be build. Thus specific and individual custom solutions can be generated. LED
Linear lighting systems are used in applications varying from mood lighting to general
lighting in office spaces, from under cabinet lighting up to façade lighting in 300 meter
heights. The use of high quality and long living components warrant energy savings
and sustainable lighting solutions with a long life time of over 50.000hrs. LED Linear
products are lead free soldered and RoHS compliant. VarioLED™, xoolum™,
xoolux™, xoolight™ and TjAway™ are LED Linear trademarks. LED Linear products
are sold in many locations worldwide, such as USA, Canada, Singapore, France, UK
and in the Middle East. In Germany, the company employs 70 people.
Reprint free of charge if source is stated – copy kindly requested
Project Website:
http://www.mobileorchard.info/
Designer's website:
http://www.atmosstudio.com
Please contact Alex Haw, atmos
a@atmosstudio.com
t: +44 (0)7815 040 619
for imagery requests,
interviews and media matters
PR Contact person
LED Linear UK :
Stuart Knox
Phone +44 7796 808 888
UK@led-linear.com
PR Contact person
LED Linear GmbH:
Jutta Lichter
Phone +49 2845.98462-0
press@led-linear.com
www.led-linear.com
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