Superbloom
Project Room’s winning entry in the international LA Lights The Way competition allows for future uses (even as yet unimaginable uses) to live alongside required elements, and expresses it’s elements rather than disguise them.
PROJECT TEAM
DESIGN LEAD: JOAKIM DAHLQVIST
PROJECT LEAD: SANDY YUM
TECHNICAL LEAD: SUMIT SAHDEV
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING: DONALD DAVIES & ROBERT BAXTER (MKA)
FOUNDER: ISAAC RESNIKOFF
In the space of darkness, Superbloom creates a place of light. Within its boundaries there is safety and comfort but there is also clarity and a kind of truth. We can see what is going on. This honesty defines the lamp itself; it is elegant in its matter-of-factness. It expresses its purposes as simply as possible and in this simplicity it remains open to change and to the future. It is honest, too, in its assembly. It is a kit of familiar parts -- really just tube and a few bolts -- so that even its flexibility is expressed. Its beauty starts with its human-scale practicality.
At a time of great cultural and civic transformation, the Superbloom is an ever-changeable monument to an ever-changing city.
Each service is assigned a dedicated tube which provides form, structure, and forward-looking expandability. The bouquet is tied together by metal collars to form a single structure that is able to express its variety of programs even while it rationalizes their organization. Each service is clearly understood and tells the truth of it’s existence.
Pablo Picasso’s “Bouquet of Peace” 1958.
Superbloom does not to force a singular streetlight to be all things at all times, but rather to reimagines the form as a bouquet.
As a system, rather than a singular pole, the bouquet can absorb future services as well. Extra tubes are built in to the design for future use. Additional arms can be quickly and affordably fabricated. The streetlight expresses its purposes as simply as possible and yet remains open to change and to the future.
The streetlight is an L.A. character. The living city is embodied by a dynamic amalgamated whole. A supporting character for a city of stars.
Superbloom’s form speaks to the diversity of the city of Los Angeles — a single entity made up of an ever-growing variety of cultural positions. At this moment the city has a historic opportunity to reimagine its core systems as a symbol of this diversity, rather than an expression of ordered uniformity. In this way it can become a true icon of the city of Los Angeles.
