Penn State Health, Hampden Medical Center

The architects informally dubbed this three-story atrium ‘the bubble’, drawing inspiration from the nearby Susquehanna River for the building’s overall design concept. The lighting design studio aimed to incorporate a sculptural lighting element evoking the essence of water. They presented three designs: one inspired by falling water or rain, another resembling actual bubbles filling the space, and the last one: Flow. The latter was by far the best received. Their challenge was to create a customised appearance using standard off-the-shelf products. They had a very specific budget to adhere to and enlisted their in-house computational design team to develop a script allowing real-time adjustments to the quantity of pendants, spacing, suspension heights, and the length of the ‘tube’ itself. The design’s form followed the golden spiral commonly found in nature. They curved the end backward to better fit the space.