Stanley Tay Wee King · CLIENT: Singapore Tourism Board
Haw Par Villa is a heritage lighting scheme for an 8.5 hectare park in Singapore, built in the 1930s and filled with sculptures and dioramas based on Chinese folklore. More than 20 sculpture attractions are lit, and each one is treated individually so that the details of its story are revealed. A moving light show at the entrance draws passers-by inside, while warm white light of 2700 to 3000 kelvin guides visitors along the paths. As the site is protected by conservation laws, drilling was avoided and custom structures were built to hold the light fittings.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The design is a balancing act between staying true to the sculptures’ stories, while making them more accessible than before. The sculptures can only be enjoyed when visitors visit the park, so the first design intent was to use moving lights situated at the park’s entrance to draw visitors into the park. Once inside, visitors are then led naturally by the lighting to the most important sculptures. Each sculpture’s lighting is then handcrafted to showcase the stories to the greatest effect.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The entire Haw Par Villa park is 8.5HA in area. We lighted up more than 20 individual sculpture attractions, the smallest of them about 10 sq metres in area, and the largest about 200 sq metres. The highest light structure we built was over 5 metres. Many kilometres of wiring and cabling was laid to enable power delivery to the new lights. It was a massive engineering undertaking.
- Tags
- lightingdesign, lightingconsultant, heritagelighting, landscapelighting
- Production Technology
- There are too many different kinds of lighting products used to individually mention. More importantly, all SKUs were customized at the factory to our exact specifications - length, luminosity, color temperature, throw of the light, and other details. In this way, most products are bespoke, even though the SKUs are readily available. The key product we used for the realization of the moving light show is the Gobo projector made by Martin Harmon, and we worked closely with them to enable a moving slide show. We also build a structure from scratch to house the Marting Harmon projector.
- Design Challenge
- This project is on a national heritage site, protected by conservation laws. Drilling and hacking are strictly prohibited. Many natural first-choice solutions cannot be used, and we had to constantly create new solutions from second-best options to get the desired lighting effect. A lot of our time was building structures that would give us total installation flexibility. And because each sculpture was unique, it was like 20 individual projects, with no economies of scale.
- Project Duration
- The project started in February 2020, and all installations finished in December 2020. However, the project was suspended from April - July of 2020 due to pandemic lockdown. The project is situated in the Republic of Singapore.
- Operation Flow
- The moving light show is situated right at the park's entrance, so that when passers-by experience the light show, they will develop curiosity about the contents inside the park. Warm white (2700-3000K light) is chosen so when visitors come into the park, it feels like a resort, increasing its comfort level. Lighting on the main dioramas are then hand-crafted for overall effect of drawing the visitors into the details.
- Research
- We did both cultural and technical research. Culturally, many of the dioramas are famous Chinese folklores, and we needed to dive deeper into these folklores in order to light them properly. In a battle scene of the Eight Immortals, we studied old books to know the 'order of battle', so key details would be lit. Technically, we used rapid prototyping to quickly cycle through variations for the best solution. We tested whenever we could, at our office, on-site, and using miniatures.
- Inspiration
- Built by the Tiger Balm family in the 1930s, Haw Par Villa is an oriental park containing sculptures and dioramas from the epic to the macabre. Over the years, visitorship fell steadily due to changing tastes. The brief was to breathe new life to these sculptures through lighting, and re-engage a new generation of visitors with its timeless folklores. We are honored to win the proposal competition to work with the Singapore Tourism Board (the park custodian) on this national commission.
- Image Credits
- Illuminating Asia SG Pte Ltd
- Patents
- Illuminating Asia SG Pte Ltd
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