Sunniside, Sunderland

Sunniside lies directly to the east of the city centre of Sunderland. It is an area that has played a key role in Sunderland’s commercial and cultural life over the years, and is currently undergoing a regeneration to breathe new life into its historic streets.

As part of this process, the client (Sunniside Partnership) selected collaborators from the fields of art, urban and public realm design, lighting, street furniture, sound and video, to reinvigorate the streets.

The Meridians

The synthesis of artworks and the public realm was guided by a network of metaphorical meridians, developed by the Berlin design firm Kapok from a study of desire lines, hierarchies and activities across Sunniside. Each meridian is made up of a sequence of places, notional Pressure Points, and elaborated as a two-fold urban strategy:

- Energy flow. The public realm is adjusted and de-cluttered to encourage movement and visually tie points to each other.

- Acupressure. The pressure points mark places of specificity, where a series of urban events are installed.

One Meridian became the case study for the overall concept: St. Thomas Street from Market Square to Sunniside Gardens, featuring three pressure points where clusters of street furniture and art interventions are embedded into the public realm. Kapok led the coordination of an international team of artists together with public realm designers Robinson Landscape Design (Newcastle) and lighting designers Lightfolio (Edinburgh) to create the new street. Each pressure point is a dense composition of furniture, sound, light and image, connecting places and drawing passers-by perceptually up the street, encouraging exploration towards Sunniside Gardens. Street furniture design is by Charlie Davidson (Sweden); the sound installation artist is Bill Fontana (San Fransisco) and video installation are by SDNA-T (London).

"Helionimbus" Lightpoles

Kapok designed these bespoke lightpoles and had them manufactured by Aquila Design in the UK. They have a unique double function, creating an intense lighting atmosphere both at night and during the day. The East-West orientation of the street results in one side of the street being permanently in shadow. The reflector heads on the bespoke light poles create patterns of reflected sunlight in the shaded street side at the Pressure Points, a luminous ornament on street and facades. Each reflector is specially oriented to ca

tch the sun at particular times to create a precise pattern of day and nighttime reflections. A play of gathered light and thrown reflections creates an urban theatre, mysterious, unique and enticing. 

For the night, Kapok collaborated with Lightfolio and other artists to develop a performative lighting concept. Colour change LED lights are positioned within the Helionimbus heads and in the ground under the stools (Aquila Noctis luminaires) precisely controlled through a DMX system. Additionally a spotlight shines onto the mirrors in the Helionimbus heads from below. The play of different lights with specially selected palette of colours create a unique, ever-changing ambience, evoking breathing or the flow of a conversation. In addition, the light controllers are connected to movement sensors, which trigger an active programme and transform the atmosphere in response to the presence of people.