PROJECT INFO
Design: Stuart Melrose
Client: Lincoln MGT
Lighting supply and Installation: Earlsmann Lighting
How do you celebrate the spirit of a town in a high-profile work of public art? This was the challenge presented to designer Stuart Melrose and artist Kev Munday when they were commissioned to create a backlit mural made from HIMACS solid surface for the new £850m Station Hill development in Reading.
A key feature of a £1.5m series of artworks, devised by cultural placemaking agency Futurecity, and commissioned and funded by Lincoln MGT JV, the mural is part of a public realm art trail across the two acres linking the station with the town centre, and is intended to both reflect and enhance the area’s cultural legacy.
Having local connections, plus experience of the kind of material that could both capture the essence of the design and withstand the demands of an outdoor, high-traffic public installation, Melrose and Munday began the process by working with an advisory committee that included historians, local art groups and schoolchildren.
‘The experience was both inspiring and highly enjoyable,’ says Melrose, ‘and it soon became clear there was fantastic scope for embodying Reading’s heritage and personality in a really vibrant, fun and distinctive way. Bringing artist Kev Munday on board was a no-brainer – his joyful, graffiti style work is unmistakable and absolutely ideal for this project.’
Welcoming arrivals to Reading from the train station, the mural marks a pedestrian gateway to the town and frames the new underpass while being visible from a ‘pocket park’ opposite.
Named Royals, Residents & a Rock Festival, the project acknowledges the area’s cultural heritage including famous faces associated with the town, such as Kate Winslet, Ricky Gervais, Kate Middleton (HRH The Princess of Wales) and Marianne Faithfull, alongside local figures such as businesswoman Tutu Melaku, scientist Dr Ethelwynn Trewavas and table tennis champion Matthew Syed. Reading landmarks such as the Hexagon Theatre, the Oracle and ONE Station Hill – and the town’s renowned rock festival – are also depicted.
‘The installation is a kind of giant, complicated light box,’ explains Melrose. ‘The outer shell and the black lines that stencil the front of the piece and represent Kev’s original artwork are made of powder-coated aluminium. The real magic in the piece from a design perspective – which also makes it the first of its kind at this scale globally – is the way the rich and even LED colours fill the space between these lines, and glow from pastel tones to deeper shades as it gets darker outside.’
To achieve this effect an extensive, programmable system for over 100,000 individually addressable LEDs was devised, together with something Melrose describes as a ‘cookie-cutter’-style channel to guide the light. The lighting programme allows for animated effects, from the eyes of the characters often giving a cheeky wink here and there, to full-scale colour changes and movements in which special effects such as fireworks or wording can move across the mural.
Also, Melrose says that choosing ‘the best diffuser we could find’ was crucial. This came in the form of HIMACS, a material capable of diffusing the illumination to optimal effect, spreading the light evenly and allowing for clarity of colour.
‘The choice of Opal from the Lucent collection was the ideal way to get the eye-catching yet diffuse translucency we were after,’ says Melrose.
‘What’s more,’ he continues, ‘being the front-facing surface to an outdoor, 50m-long mural, it needed to be structurally strong enough and durable enough to withstand life in a public space and an extremely high traffic area. But we also needed something that could be repaired should any damage, accidental or deliberate, occur. Ultimately, there was only one solution to make our vision possible and that was class-leading, tough, translucent HIMACS.’
To span the extensive wall that frames the new underpass, ramp and steps, 54 sheets of HIMACS and the ‘lightbox’ frame were fabricated and fitted by façade specialists AGS System Ltd, with lighting supplied by Earlsmann and programmed by Lee Savage.
‘The design demanded the HIMACS panels to be milled to precise dimensions,’ adds Melrose, ‘So they could be put together like a giant puzzle that follows the aluminium lines at the front.’ It was also essential that the panels could be removed for access to the electronics, while having expansion gaps between them.
Munday, described by The Daily Mail as ‘the new Banksy’, is delighted with the result. The collaboration with the schoolchildren resulted in a series of drawings that could be adapted to his signature style. The black stencil lines needed to be drawn in such a way that every line and curve touches another, so that the ‘puzzle pieces’ of the HIMACS elements could be fitted neatly into each aperture of the interconnected frame.
‘This hugely impressive public space is now effectively the town’s new front door. The creation of an attractive green space and accompanying public square, complete with seating, sculptures and artwork, will quickly become a destination in its own right,’ says Councillor Liz Terry, leader of Reading Borough Council of the Station Hill project.
Lee Fearnhead, director of construction for UK & Europe at Lincoln Property Company, and on behalf of the Lincoln MGT JV, adds: “’This newly landscaped area was previously a derelict, inaccessible site for the best part of 20 years. We have transformed it into a series of attractive open spaces which everyone in Reading can enjoy.’
