Brilliant Brilliance

Blackpool bolsters reputation as a lighting destination, with son et lumiere installation. 

Blackpool Illuminations saw an exciting addition this year as the town’s famous lights were joined by six giant arches.  Part of an ambitious regeneration scheme for Blackpool town centre, ‘Brilliance’ is a permanent installation housing a spectacular light and sound show; a night time attraction for both residents and visitors alike.

Commissioned by Blackpool Council and the brain child of concept designer Greg McLenahan of Worldwide Lighting Design and concept design and developer Brendan Keely of BDP, the unique scheme, a 21st-century son et lumiere, was designed to further boost the resort’s reputation as a lighting destination, and forms part of the Council’s Regeneration by Light initiative.

Birley Street provides the main focus for the scheme, providing the backdrop for the arches while the three adjacent streets provide a flavour of the event with gobo projections pulling people in from the surrounding area.

Concept to completion
The concept for the arches originated from the idea of a continuous ribbon spiralling in and out of the ground.  BDP liased with manufacturer DW Windsor to realise the massive challenge of building the arches.  ‘Fulfilling the aims of the client team was the tricky part,’ says BDP’s Brendan Keely.  ‘The need to include moving head projection and sound in the middle of Blackpool with the issues of rain, wind, the saline environment and the prospect of vandalism presented all sorts of challenges.  The size and weight of the moving head projectors had to somehow be accommodated, protected and integrated, and it was also necessary to control the general street lighting and dim this at show times.’

With the design team originally instructed not to dig trenches for the power and control cabling, as it was believed the street sat on a concrete raft, a bespoke trunking and street lighting system was designed and manufactured by DW Windsor.

The suspended 350m trunking spans the top of the arches.  Drawing clean lines through the structures, it also acts as a housing for the innovative street lighting (probably the first time it has been done this way in the UK), which relies entirely on a series of recessed linear LED fittings (45 strips, each 1m long and with 188 white LEDs).

The clutter of conventional street lighting is avoided and the whole system uses 630W, slicing a substantial 60 per cent off earlier energy bills.
Constructing the arches, which have a tubular steel skeleton covered by marine-grade aluminium, took DW Windsor into entirely new territory.  Apart from the sheer scale of the project and the logistics entailed, the torsion on each arch meant that each element of the aluminium skin had to be shaped and installed individually.  The calculation of which defeated even the most sophisticated computer programmes.  ‘This was literally a monumental task,’ says Terry Dean, Managing Director of DW Windsor.  ‘At every stage there has been a challenge, from the logistics of manufacturing on such a large scale to the millimetre-precision need to make sure the aluminium cladding panels fitted exactly together.  The two-year long project has been one of the most difficult that DW Windsor has undertaken to date, but has broadened our expertise considerably.’

A true collaboration between all parties involved, the arches are hoped to provide an instantly recognisable iconic structure, which in time may become as identifiable as the Blackpool Tower. 

Client Blackpool Council
Contributory Funders North West Development Agency, European Regional Development Fund
Principal Contractor J. McCann & Co. (Nottm) Ltd
Design Concept Greg McLenahan (World Wide Lighting Design)
Concept Development Brendan Keely (BDP)
Street Lighting Design (Birley Street) DW Windsor Lighting
Street Lighting Design (Surrounding Streets) Building Design Partnership
Arch manufacture and street lighting supplier DW Windsor Lighting