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We have presented our initial concepts for a new $780,000 lighting project for Christchurch’s historic Botanic Gardens.

Described by the Council Head of Parks Andrew Rutledge as “stand-outs in creating not just light, but an experience”, our design will bring the Gardens to life after dark with the use of creative lighting installations.

The concept presentation in Christchurch offered the Council taste of the lighting design and a discussion of the ideas, also giving the wider public opportunity to provide feedback with images of trials to be displayed within the Gardens.

We will use our global experience from lighting public spaces such as the lighting masterplan for Sydney Opera House to deliver this project, using darkness, as much as light as noted by lead lighting designer, Emrah Baki Ulas “light needs darkness, as darkness needs light” while keeping the main focus on a design that supports a safe, comfortable, enjoyable environment.

Construction of the Gardens lighting project is expected to begin early next year, and be completed before the end of summer 2017. The lighting will be visible from Rolleston Ave and the Canterbury Museum.

Read full Newsline on Christchurch City Council website

Established in 1854, The State Library Victoria in Melbourne is one of Victoria State’s oldest public institutions and Australia’s oldest public library holding a key place in Melbourne’s literary heritage and culture. Referencing the scheduled year of completion, the Vision 2020 Redevelopment will position the Library for the future to continue to provide a place where ideas, learning, culture and creativity are cultivated and ensure a number of developments and new initiatives enhance and expand this internationally recognised facility.

Since our very first commission in 1933 on the Faculty Library of Natural and Health Sciences at University of Copenhagen, Steensen Varming has been involved in some of the world’s most renowned and innovative libraries projects, demonstrating new ways of thinking in how libraries are designed and used, such as the British Library and the recently award-winning Bankstown Library and Knowledge Centre.

The Australian-Danish collaboration with schmidt hammer lassen and Architectus is supported by our studios in Sydney and Copenhagen, putting into play some of the world’s best talent and expertise in design solutions, based on shared vision and values. The team is also supported by Melbourne-based Andronas Conservation Architects and Irwin Consult.

Video: Overview of the State Library of Victoria Redevelopment Program

From Wednesday 18th through to Saturday 21st of May a group of benefactors from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) will be visiting Copenhagen. The group of ten people – all with a special interest in the built environment – is part of RIBA’s programme Patrons of Architecture. The schedule for the trip includes many of Copenhagen’s greatest attractions in modern architecture such as Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s Black Diamond, BIG’s Power Plant and 3XN’s Bella Sky hotel but also visits to architectural gems that are not normally accessible to the public; accompanied by Tobias Jacobsen, designer and grandson of Arne Jacobsen, the group will have the opportunity of getting close to the more and lesser known buildings by the architect as well as the stories and the man behind them.

In Gentofte, Søren Varming, graphic designer and grandson of Steensen Varming’s founder, Jørgen Varming, will be giving a tour of his grandfather’s old house, built in 1952 in close collaboration with the architects Niels and Eva Koppel. The heritage listed house was bought by Realdania in 2013 and underwent an extensive renovation by Steensen Varming in collaboration with architect Kent Pedersen where care was taken to preserve the original systems that make the house so special and an example of exceptional engineering, including a six metre-wide glass façade that can be raised all the way up, a hot air heating system via an underfloor duct system and Denmark’s first extractor hood. The British guests will experience a unique house, marking the modernist development for Danish family homes, as well as the life that played out in these spaces.

More on Varming’s House

We wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to another year collaborating on exciting projects and celebrating great design.

2015 saw the official opening of our London Studio on Foley Street in Fitzrovia, the completed restoration of the iconic house and previous residence of our founder, Jørgen Varming, in collaboration with Realdania and architect Kent Pedersen in Copenhagen. In Sydney we were awarded the significant task of developing the concept and schematic designs for the upgrades to the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall with ARM Architecture as well as mechanical and electrical services design for the ground-breaking Sydney Modern project. We enjoyed participating in the annual HKBIM Conference with our views on BIM in project management in Hong Kong and the 25th Annual Conference of the International Association of Museum Facility Administrators (IAMFA) in Chicago.

A number of new appointments across our global studios were made to support our unique development plan, welcoming Fredrik Emil Nors in Copenhagen, Simm Steel, Tiadra Simpson Ben Savage, Arshpreet Kaur, Melissa Thorpe and Baoying Tong in Sydney and Anu Anna George and Isabel Lo in Hong Kong.

Our completed projects were acknowledged with the following awards –

Australian War Memorial External Lighting

IES NSW LiDA (Lighting Design Award), Award of Excellence

Bankstown Library and Knowledge Centre

IES ANZ International Awards, Award of Excellence

Roll of Honour Lighting & Sound System at Australian War Memorial

Audio Visual Industry Awards, Innovation in AV

Sydney Opera House Recording Studio

AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Small Project Architecture Award

University of Sydney Charles Perkins Centre (Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease)

AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Interior Architecture Commendation

AIA NSW Architecture Awards, Educational Architecture Award

UTS Alumni Green Catenary Luminaire

IES NSW LuDA (Luminaire Design Award), Award of Commendation

UTS Thomas Street Building

Sydney Design Awards, Architecture – Mixed Use – Construction category Gold Winner

AIA NSW Architecture Awards, City of Sydney Lord Mayor’s Prize

NSW Architecture Awards, William E Kemp Award for Educational Architecture

AIRAH Awards, National Sustainability Award

Architecture & Design Sustainability Awards, Public Building & Urban Design Prize

In a team with Vandkunsten Architects our Copenhagen studio has been shortlisted for the project competition titled ’Healthy Housing’, involving three experimental single-familiy houses focusing on innovation in climate control in the town of Holstebro.

The competition by Realdania Byg is part of the initiative ”A Good Indoor Environment” under the ”Innovation in Construction” programme and the three houses will be developed to demonstrate innovation and new approaches to improved indoor environment in each their different way.

As a 1:1 demonstration project it will connect research and practice, investigating the ways to create better environments through building materials, methodology and technology based on the theory that recent years’ focus on energy and the environment may have impacted negatively on the health and comfort of building users. The project will demonstrate how the indoor environment can be improved without compromising on energy and without expensive additional costs. It will also shift the focus from inappropriate user behavior to the need for better designed buildings.

The results will establish new knowledge to a buildable reality in a broad sense – in new and existing buildings. Following construction the houses will be let out to ‘test families’ for a period where indoor air quality will be monitored.

The project is well aligned with the expertise and experience of our team as well as our vision of creating integrated, positive environments that are healthy and comfortable, contributing to future research and innovation.

Shortlisted among five teams, during the competition phase we will be preparing a response, describing the holistic and functional as well as economically viable ideas for an improved indoor climate with a primary focus on innovative initiatives for ventilation, building physics, moisture and degassing.

Steensen Varming has previously completed a project for Realdania Byg with a focus on improved climate control and sustainability, restoring the Varming House, a compelling space of modern Danish architecture designed by our founder, Jørgen Varming with the architects Eva and Nils Koppel.

Photo: Arkitema Architects

As part of our unique development plan, new appointments have been made at Steensen Varming, including a Senior Sustainability Consultant, a Senior Lighting Designer, a Lighting Designer and an Electrical Engineer in order to strengthen our specialist areas and to support new projects.

Fredrik Emil Nors has joined the Copenhagen team as a Senior Sustainability Consultant from Esbensen Consulting Engineers where he has led projects in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Fredrik is a certified DGNB-DK consultant – Green Building Council Denmark’s rating system based on voluntarily outperforming common concepts, acknowledged as one of the highest in the world. He specialises in the areas of indoor air quality and health, sustainable masterplanning and reduction of energy consumption of urban development areas.

Simm Steel joins the Sydney studio as Senior Lighting Designer. Simm has been the Senior Lighting Technician at the Art Gallery of NSW since 2004 and a consultant to public museums and private galleries. He brings with him a wealth of experience in lighting design and on-site focussing and commissioning, the ability to understand and meet the needs of the client, and to balance technical requirements with the creation of the best possible visual experience.

Erin Slaviero has relocated from Melbourne to join the Sydney team as Project Lighting Designer until the end of the year after which she will be based at the Copenhagen studio. Having completed a Bachelor of Interior Design and a Masters of Lighting Design, Erin’s passion for design and lighting is well reflected in her maturity of understanding in both fields.

Tiadra Simpson joins Sydney’s electrical team from the US. She is a previous student of architecture and has a degree in Electrical Engineering, specialising in renewable electric energy systems with a passion for the detailed aspects of electrical engineering in the built environment.

In addition to these appointments, Steensen Varming has recently welcomed the interns Susanne Thomassen and Finlay Robinson in Sydney, Oliver Halliwell in London and Søren Skeel Olesen in Copenhagen. With various programmes, we will promote the opportunities for students and graduates in gaining practical experience and knowledge of different subjects, enabling them to make better, informed decisions in their future education and career.

Our proposal with VK Studio, Mikkelsen Arkitekter and Dorte Mandrup is among the three winners in the project competition for Ny Psykiatri Bispebjerg, a new facility which will serve more than 420.000 patients in Copenhagen, providing mental healthcare at the highest international level. The proposal presents an intimate functional building, unfolding from the inside out with surprising distinguished hanging gardens.

Once again, VIVID has turned Sydney into one of the world’s largest outdoor spectacles submerging the City in light, music and ideas.

Two of Steensen Varming’s lighting designers have also participated in VIVID 2015: Associate and Lighting Designer Emrah Baki Ulas is exhibiting two works this year. His contributions include Ayla, a serene image of the moon projected on a giant scale and surrounded by an ecliptical halo of light. The installation is named after Emrah’s daughter, Ayla, meaning “halo of light around the moon”.

Emrah’s second installation is the space-themed A Light Year Ahead, inspired by the UNESCO 2015 International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies. The work simulates the sensation of space travel through moving spatial high-definition images, a mirrored floor and ceiling, and screen walls lit by projections with a futuristic soundscape adding to the experience.

A new member of our lighting team, Erin Slaviero, is also taking part in this year’s event with a collaborative project Kaleidoscope, a unique colourful installation that creates portals of infinite space by manipulating perspective with light and mirrors, merging the ideas of an infinity mirror and an infinity room. The viewer is taken on a journey through a never-ending space in which the deepness of space is shown in the direction of fading light.

We worked with Arne Jacobsen and Flemming Lassen on Søllerød Town Hall, now renamed Rudersdal Town Hall, having only a few years earlier collaborated with Arne Jacobsen on Aarhus Town Halll, designed on similar modern functionalist principles. Rudersdal is located 20km north of Copenhagen and the Town Hall was completed in 1942 with chairs, desks, lamps and textiles all designed by Arne Jacobsen. Built in reinforced concrete, faced in marble with a copper-plated roof, it was the first public building built after 1900 to become heritage listed.

72 years and a couple of generations later, Søllerød Municipality has become part of Rudersdal Municipality and Steensen Varming has after its permanent establishment in Australia following the commission on the Opera House with Jørn Utzon, re-opened its Copenhagen and London studios along with new studios in Hong Kong and New York. The reunion with this iconic masterpiece is the second recent project that represents a re-connection with our past, following our engagement on the restoration of the Varming Villa in Gentofte designed by our founder Jørgen Varming with the architects Niels and Eva Koppel. The continued involvement on projects from our early years enable us to apply the knowledge and approach that has been passed on through our people and practices and this opportunity represents one of the main reasons behind the return to our roots.

From 1 to 5 October a luminous arch of 50 subtle colour fades stretched across Parramatta River as our lighting team lit up the Gladesville Bridge in celebration of its 50th Anniversary.

When opened on 2 October 1964 it was, at 1000 feet (305 metres) the longest span concrete arch bridge in the world. On the official ceremony held by RMS on 1 October the Bridge received an “Engineering Heritage International Marker” joining only three other Australian recipients of this prestigious international award which include the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme and the West Australian Goldfields Water Supply. Applying high-efficiency LEDs, the lighting solution enhances the elegant structure and creates a night-time landmark with minimal daytime impact and will be used for future special events and projects by RMS.