Life by the water­side is fas­ci­nat­ing. For many years now, plan­ners have been turn­ing water­fronts in many towns and cities into attrac­tive, liv­able places. As well as increas­ing the aware­ness of nature in towns and cities, this has also improved qual­ity for life for res­i­dents and vis­i­tors. With this project, plan­ners used water as an addi­tional design ele­ment to create a new public living space in Jönköping in the Swedish province of Små­land.

In this indus­trial town on the south­ern perime­ter of Lake Vät­tern a water­front prom­e­nade arose in 2016 with a spa­cious square – for spend­ing time, relax­ing and for play­ing in the water.

During dark­ness the light cre­ates a dis­tinc­tive atmos­phere, lend­ing Lillsjöplan’s urban space a unique iden­tity. The light­ing con­cept uses the Olivio Sis­tema design line with Grande-sized and Medio-sized lumi­naire heads: in total 30 Olivio spots have been installed in a dynamic RGBW con­fig­u­ra­tion on six 10-metre high poles for the illu­mi­na­tion of the square. The Olivio RGBW lumi­naires enable unlim­ited colour diver­sity too. The spe­cial RGBW optics is based on a cir­cu­lar arrange­ment of coloured and white LEDs in a rota­tion-sym­met­ri­cal, freely-con­fig­urable reflec­tor. Its geom­e­try enables pre­ci­sion colour mixing con­tained entirely within the optics unit.

Along­side the bicy­cle path 6-metre high poles have been used, each of which is fitted with three Medio-sized lumi­naires heads, ensur­ing a har­mo­nious light set­ting. With their organic floral design, the lumi­naires empha­sise the curv­ing lines of the water­front while their shape also har­monises with the long, curv­ing bench that winds along the lake­side. At night, the emit­ted light bathes the sur­round­ing area in either white or coloured light as desired – an addi­tional styl­is­tic ele­ment that accen­tu­ates the design of the exte­rior water­front by means of coloured light, thereby enhanc­ing the ambi­ence.


Project: Waterfront Lillsjöplan
Client: Jönköping Municipality
Landscape architect: Sydväst arckitektur & landskap AB, Malmö
Lighting designer: Tor Olsson, Jönköping Municipality
Photographer: Per Johansson
Representation: Selux AB, Sweden