LASN is a photographically oriented, professional journal featuring topics of concern and state-of-the-art projects designed or influenced by registered Landscape Architects.
Issue link: https://landscapearchitect.epubxp.com/i/150657
Right the bus shelters, whose custom designed wave-like tensile fabric canopies are suspended from transparent mesh clad towers, are dramatically up-lit at night with customized color LeDs that also highlight the colorful mosaics beneath each shelter. Above the towers of the bus shelters have state-ofthe-art digital message boards, backlit transit maps and illuminated display cases for exhibiting local art. LeD lighting bars recessed into the support structures provide high illumination for nighttime safety. Fiber optic cables at each structure link the computercontrolled accent lighting, and allow for future communication upgrades. With the proximity of the ocean, durable materials were a necessity. And as transit goers would frequently touch many of the constructed improvements, it was essential the shelter and site furnishing connections, finishes, and materials be safe to the touch and rugged. All exposed metals in the shelters are stainless steel. The site benches and receptacles are tubular steel construction and powder coated white to match the bus shelters. The twin acorn streetlights on ornamental steel poles were maintained, a tribute to the downtown's historic precedent. However, new intermediate pedestrian lights meld with the contemporary site furnishing and fixtures installed downtown and in the nearby East Village Arts District. To promote authentic interpretive art, mosaic artist Robin Brailsford worked with the nearby Aquarium of 50 Landscape Architect and Specifier News the Pacific to select appropriate local shore creatures and flora to decorate the sidewalks. She used the patented "Lithocrete" process to create colorful mosaics in her offsite studio on net backing, and then had them applied to the direct Lithocrete pour, not an easy feat, given that some mosaics images were 12 feet in diameter, and another 35 feet long! The bigger-than-life ocean creatures and plants captured in tile/glass mosaics, were carefully chosen to key to each shelter letter designation: anemones at Shelter "A", barnacles and bivalves at Shelter "B", crabs at "C" and an elephant at Shelter "E", a historic reminder that elephants once walked the beach here for the ceremonial arrival of the circus in Long Beach. The site furnishings were scattered beyond the covered shelters to offer informal seating under the date palms and canopy trees. With over 38 bus routes