Architectural Illumination - Beyond Walls Winner 2021

BEYOND WALLS, WINNER - 2021 AIA AWARDS - REGIONAL & URBAN DESIGN

APRIL 2021 - Huge congratulations to Beyond Walls for winning this prestigious AIA award!

PORT provided architectural lighting installation services installing the color-changing LED underpass lighting for Beyond Walls—with the goal of improving safety and walkability in downtown Lynn, MA. This will forever be a favorite PORT project.

We’ve loved watching Beyond Walls change the programmable, dynamic color settings for different events and holidays over the years. We were honored to join the project team, led by Payette and LAM Partners, with collaborators including Color Kinetics, IBEW 103, and Bala. LEARN MORE…

Original Article - Beyond Walls 

Exploring how designers can activate connection through multiple interventions in the built environment, this project, a pro-bono effort, rallied the citizens of Lynn, Massachusetts, around art as a vital source of public engagement and civic improvement. To realize this, the team partnered with Beyond Walls, a collection of engaged citizens, to develop five distinct interventions. The emergence of COVID-19 prompted the two most recent, but all together they have significantly strengthened the connection between Lynn’s citizens and their physical environment while providing the corollary effects of enhanced safety and walkability.

For decades, Lynn had been facing economic and perception changes. To better support the city, the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, better known as MassDevelopment, made it a focus of its 2016 Districts in Development initiative. The effort highlighted several improvement opportunities that could be implemented quickly to attract new investment.

The following year, with Mass Development’s recommendations as a guide, the team began activating three of Lynn’s shadowy underpass spaces with dynamic LED lighting installations. Easily the most ambitious of all of the interventions, the 16,000 square feet of lighting required careful coordination with regulatory agencies and dozens of designers and tradespeople. The lighting has transformed those spaces from dark and dangerous to a visual representation of the city’s spirit and ambition. The $1.2 million project was funded entirely by gifts, grants, and in-kind donations.