MITCHELL PARK DOMES
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
IA Award of Merit
NRPA Gold Award of Excellence
Mayor’s 2010 Design Award
This lighting design was chosen in a national design competition to rejuvenate this Milwaukee landmark. The design enhanced the original unique structure through a kinetic choreography of hundreds of individually programmed LED’s, while sculpting the unusual horticultural specimens in the three domes and providing a romantic nighttime escape.
Exterior: Joining their place on the nighttime Milwaukee skyline, each dome is topped by a “halo” ring of light, a precedent set by the original 1960’s design. These halos create a nighttime visual clock that pulses the hour and half-hour plus an energetic celebration at midnight. The entry arches are also artistically uplit, plus unique decorative “frond” poles enhance the approach.
Lobby: The skylight is reshaped into a leaf form that nightly fills with 400 animated LED’s for sparkle and color. The leaf pattern is echoed with LED downlights that fill the lobby with color, while frosted windows are grazed with LEDs that surround the space with colors.
Tropical Dome: A mysterious romance and contemplation is created from twilight-blue downlights and perimeter uplights, while winking firefly lights add to the tropical flair. Hidden landscape fixtures dramatize the rich fauna, while extensive underwater lighting add depth and mysticism.
Desert Dome: A “sculptural garden” of unique natural shapes is painted with white light from extensive glare-free landscape fixtures to celebrate the textural fauna. Twilight-blue uplights around the perimeter and Moonlight-blue downlights provide a contrasting backdrop, while a glowing moon provides a fun theatrical motivation.
Show Dome: The unique geodesic structure is uplit from the perimeter with fifty intense individually programmable LED color-wash fixtures. The unique triangular glass pattern is celebrated with individual programmable ‘pixels’ of LED light at the 400 mullion intersections. The layering and choreography for the wash and pixels can be as subtle as twinkling stars for some events, or can become kinetic art that dances to music for endless options to keep the Domes an ever-evolving attraction.