Bayou-luminescence, one of ten site-specific installations commissioned by the New Orleans chapter of the American Institute of Architects, was a collaboration between Igor Siddiqui, the principal of the Austin-based design practice ISSSStudio and Matt Hutchinson, the principal of San-Francisco-based firm PATH. The project was included as a part of DesCours, the annual architecture and art event on view at various locations in city from December 2 through 11, 2011. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Bayou-luminescence is an architectural installation that fuses material surface, structural volume and lighting effects into an immersive spatial experience. Its title is a play-on-words that refers to bioluminescence, a phenomenon whereby living organisms produce and emit light. Like a strange creature in the night, the installation glows from within, casting intricate shadows onto adjacent architectural surfaces. Temporarily sited at the end of a dark residential alley in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Bayou-luminescence invited passersby to cross the otherwise accepted boundary between the public sidewalk and the private space beyond, in order to experience its intensely haptic surfaces, both inside and out.
