Project Name: Victoria Bridge Abutment

Practice Name: City Parklands P/L

Project Address: Stanley Street, South Brisbane

City Parklands commissioned Webb Australia to provide the lighting design for the Victoria Bridge abutment. 

The design concept for the Lighting Renewal Program is to highlight key assets within the Cultural Forecourt, as well as provide ‘themed’ options through changeable coloured lights controlled by a wireless DMX system. The objective is to show-case the historic Victoria Bridge Abutment by up-lighting the interior of the arch to highlight its shape, and by washing the exterior walls to bring out the texture of the stone.

By day the light fittings are designed to be as un-obtrusive as possible. The up-lights to the Bridge Abutment are housed in contemporary angled concrete blocks that integrate in style with other new works, yet complement the heritage architecture. These lights create a new landscape feature at the base of the historic stone wall which has become a popular spot for relaxing while viewing the river.

At night the new Abutment lighting makes a feature of a key historic asset, while supporting safe use of the abutment after dark and improving the overall ambience. Generally set on a warm white, the lighting can be adjusted to provide colour themes for special occasions.

Importantly, this flexibility in creating effective themed lighting throughout the space enables creative and innovative lighting responses. For instance, City Parklands partnered with QPAC to create a “France Memorial” throughout the Cultural Forecourt, using a striking mix of red, blue and white lights as a very public demonstration of Brisbane’s sympathy and support to the Paris attack.

The lighting is situated in an inner city area with a lot of overspill from surrounding areas, particularly QPAC. In consideration of this lighting pollution, all lights were positioned to get maximum wall wash across the Abutment features and to avoid overspill in to adjacent areas.

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