083 IN ORBIT
Towering over the park, the ArcelorMittal Orbit provides an Olympic Park landmark for the Games and beyond.
When the design for the ArcelorMittal Orbit was initially revealed back in March 2010, reaction was mixed. Here was a tower whose form didn’t fit our preconceived no- tions of what a tower should be; a sculpture whose challenging aesthetic seemed to sit somewhere between the functional and fantastical. For artist Anish Kapoor and engineer Cecil Balmond, the collaborative team behind the design of the structure, this ‘unusualness’ is part of its appeal. “We’re really interested in geometry and the way that form and geometry give rise to structure,” explains Kapoor. “We’ve worked on different forms of tower before, but we thought we could take this one a little further.”
The existence of the tower - a 114.5m high knot of red painted steel, topped by an observation platform - is the result of a chance meeting between London Mayor Boris Johnson and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal at the Davos international economic forum. Their brief conversation led to an international competition to design a piece for the Olympic park that would serve as a visitor attraction both in games time and afterwards when the Park enters legacy mode; something very iconic, but with which the public could interact. The installation of 250 LED spotlights added an additional element to the tower – continuing its role as a landmark after nightfall. Spots were positioned around the external spiral staircase, the looping lattices, the canopy and viewing platforms areas, with red LEDs used on the painted steel lattice to help deepen their colour. In addition to the static scheme that operates from dusk to midnight, preprogrammed control software triggered a fifteen-minute moving light show every evening, as well as producing special effects to mark major events in and around the Park. Arup’s lighting designers, structural en- gineers and the architects collaborated closely to ensure that the light projec- tors are all discreetly located within the structure and carefully focused and aimed to minimise light spill onto the ecologically sensitive area of the river corridor and limit sky glow. Sophisticated lighting software, RADIANCE, was employed to analyse and predict the lighting distribution over the sculpture and its surroundings to ensure full
compliance with the ODA lighting strategy. Arup’s Electrical and Mechanical Engineers worked with the firm’s lighting designers to integrate all services in a way that has ensured that all cables and wirings are invisible.
After the Games, the Orbit will close while the Olympic Park transitions to legacy mode. When it reopens in 2014, the Arce- lorMittal Orbit will be able to accommodate up to 5,000 visitors a day with a potential to attract around one million people during the first year of operation. Visitors will also experience the metaphor of an orbit after dark; using light to unravel the sculpture’s convoluted form and to grasp its dynamic shape. Arup Lighting Director Florence Lam refers to their approach as using “dark light”.
www.anishkapoor.com www.balmondstudio.com www.arup.com
PROJECT DETAILS
ArcelorMittal Orbit, Olympic Park, London, UK Artist: Anish Kapoor Engineer: Cecil Balmond Lighting Design: Arup
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