Bad Lighting Design Part 2

It appears the cheap lighting under the Trafalgar Street underpass wasn’t finished when I blogged about it. The latest developments are:

1. A white spotlight pointing downwards above each archway on the north side. Not bad, but should’ve been in the struts pointing at an angle for a better effect.

2. Sequenced LEDs in the attractive niches on the south side. These just add to the overall lurid effect of the colour-changers. Again, these niches should’ve been picked out by gentle spots in the struts.

3. Another row of LEDs has been added at the top, where the road comes out. Because of the slope, these are much higher than the original two runs which were already at slightly different heights. So instead of a pleasing line, we have three strips of light at three different levels.

4. They’ve covered the LED casings and wiring with what appears to be half a drainpipe. However, it’s in two colours: brown on the bricks, and white at the top, adding to the disjointed look of them. Also a note to designers: when you put something on a wall, it doesn’t disappear if you cover it with a similar coloured plasting case. It would’ve been better to have a nice, contrasting casing that was at least consistent with itself. Perhaps painted to match the existing ironwork, making it look like part of the structure. Oh, and they could at least have made an effort to hide the screws that are at 6 inch intervals. Better still there shouldn’t be anything at all ruining a nice bit of Victorian brickwork.

There’s still a crane under there, so Brighton Council might not yet be done with their wacky design hell. I’ll report back if they suddenly install lasers or strobes (which wouldn’t be at all surprising).