Lighting Focus: Growing, Glowing
The Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde, who has always thrived on pushing envelopes, is among those looking to nature and bioluminescence for future light sources.
Edited by Jill Entwistle
DUTCH ARTIST and innovator Daan Roosegaarde has always thrived on pushing envelopes, exploiting technology and science to come up with artistic but purposeful and functional solutions for the urban environment. Lighting has figured strongly in his work, from his early roadway interventions with solar-sensitive paint and the Van Gogh bicycle path in Amsterdam, to his organic fireworks inspired by fireflies and the Waterlicht installations that have appeared all over the world.
Roosegaarde’s vision of self-growing and glowing street lights. Image Credit: Studio Roosegaarde
Glowing Nature is an ongoing project that began in 2017, designed to explore bioluminescence in algae, one of the oldest microorganisms in the world, and its application as a practical light source. Studio Roosegaarde first showed its potential in an exhibition in the historic bunkers on the Afsluitdijk, a major dam and causeway in the Netherlands.
It has subsequently travelled to other countries. Following an intensive period of research and design it involved creating the perfect conditions for visitors to experience the light-emitting algae, presented in a custom made polymer shell. As visitors walked around the installation, the pressure of their footsteps triggered the algae, the bioluminescence of which created a mesmerising, ever-changing environment. The research programme continues with developing designs for Glowing Nature as public street lights.
Roosegaarde’s vision of self-growing and glowing street lights. Image Credit: Studio Roosegaarde
‘Only under the perfect conditions and with the right amount of maintenance and care, do the single cell algae give off a prolonged natural light when they are touched,’ says Roosegaarde. ‘The algae are also a building block for our circular economy. In this way, we learn new energy and light solutions for the future from nature, like public lighting.
