One reason to have skyscrapers in DC: the fun things you can do with the lighting
Right: Schuylkill River and the 30th Street Station, with the Cira Centre building in the background, Philadelphia.This past Friday, and next Wednesday, the LED lighting system at the Cira Centre in Philadelphia is being manipulated so that people can play Pong, as the bookending events of Philadelphia Tech Week.
See the AP story, "Pong game is writ large on Philly skyscraper," "Pong played on walls of Philadelphia’s Cira Centre; 83,000-square-foot game" from PC Games Network and and this video. The LED lighting scheme at the Cira Centre building is already manipulated as a kind of architectural lighting system.
Labels: architectural lighting, arts-culture, design method, public art, urban design/placemaking
posted by Richard Layman @ 10:51 AM&Permanent Link
2 Comments:
The Cira Centre is a terrible urban building - it doesn't address the street, though there isn't much of a street to address in the wasteland around 30th Street Station - but when I lived in Philadelphia, I always enjoyed looking at its light displays, which can be pretty striking if you're driving on the Schuylkill Expressway or coming up Market Street.
But speaking of what you can do with skyscrapers: The PECO headquarters (Philadelphia's power company) across the river has a scrolling marquee on its top that displays the time, weather, news headlines, etc. I always found it very useful. It can also be programmed to show other statements - for instance, "Welcome Back Penn Students" at the beginning of the school year." It's kind of like a crappy modernist version of Big Ben for Philadelphia.
we do not want modernist blocks or Geary type garbage visually polluting DC- we should have Gothic skyscrapers done in a tasteful and impressive way- artisic- not crappy- and please not inside Florida Avenue. Keep it all outside the Lenfant city .There is plenty of room in NW and Tenleytown- and it will hasten the exodus of yuppie-NIMBYs out of this area if we concentrate them there and in Anacostia and other areas outside the old city area.
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