Portland Winter Light Festival, Oregon
Background
Portland’s annual Winter Light Festival is a very popular, citywide art walk that runs in February. Each year, the week-long, outdoor event has a different theme.
In 2024, the theme was Sustainability. The event included dozens of original art installations, including the Prismatic Plastiquarium, a manmade world filled with aquatic life created by using recycled materials.
The concept for this particular installation was the creative product of Clark/Kjos Architects. They invited Solus Lighting & Controls and Pence Construction to collaborate with them to make the Prismatic Plastiquarium a reality within a very tight schedule – just two months.
Challenge
One of the challenges for the team was to bring the creative concept to life using sustainable materials without the installation looking as though it had been made from recycled garbage. The team wanted to dazzle festival goers.
It was at this stage that Solus invited Cooper Lighting Solutions to join the project.
They’d partnered successfully with the lighting manufacturer before and knew that Cooper Lighting Solutions offered high-quality 3D-printed lighting fixtures made from at least 55% mass-balanced, bio-circular materials and they knew their 3D printing process allowed for personalization.
Solution
PrentaLux, the Cooper Lighting Solutions line of 3D printed fixtures offers many advantages relating to both sustainability and artistry. In this case, perhaps the most important PrentaLux feature is that standard fixture shapes can be personalized – even turned into jellyfish, it turns out.
The Cooper Lighting Solutions Team took a creative idea for creating jellyfish from light fixtures, refined it, and came up with the stunning sea creatures you see in the photos.
The PrentaLux 3D printing process allows designers to personalize standard PrentaLux fixture shapes, colors, and materials. Design ideas are quickly created using software and a single fixture can be 3D printed in no more than a couple of hours. If modifications are needed, they’re programmed using the software, and a new sample can be easily 3D printed – unlike standard manufacturing that requires the costly and time-consuming process of creating tooling for every iteration.
For extra punch, the Cooper Lighting Solutions team used WiZ LED color-changing bulbs in the fixtures so the jellyfish would continuously change color, mimicking some real jellyfish species.
Results
PrentaLux 3D-printed fixtures from Cooper lighting solutions delivered the sustainability and creativity this team needed to turn what started as a loose sketch on a piece of paper into the stunning, wildly colorful installation known as the Prismatic Plastiquarium. And they helped ensure the entire project was completed, from start to finish, in just two months.
PrentaLux Sustainability:
- All PrentaLux products are Declare-certified.
- 3D printing allows for on-demand manufacturing, so there’s no waste – and no costly lead times.
- All shape, color, and texture preferences are stored in the 3D printer (which is essentially a computer), so there’s no need to create and store expensive tooling.
- Because 3D printers are usually geographically much closer to customers than traditional manufacturing plants, 3D printed products don’t have to be shipped as far, saving time and transport costs and decreasing carbon emissions.
PrentaLux Creativity:
- PrentaLux 3D printing technology offers a wide range of shapes, colors, textures, and materials that can be combined and personalized in countless ways.
- Standard shapes can also be personalized, as was the case with the jellyfish luminaires in this art installation.
After the Winter Festival closed for the season, the jellyfish made from PrentaLux 3D-printed fixtures stayed true to their origin as part of a sustainability message and they were donated to the Pediatrics Medical Clinic for Yakima Valley Farm Workers where we hear they continue to bring joy to children and adults.
We approached Cooper Lighting Solutions in December. Even with the holidays making it a short month, they were able to turn around a concept and a final product in weeks. That was really impressive.Benjamin Watson Director of Sales, Solus Lighting & Controls