Magical Shores at Siloso

Magical Shore is a permanent interactive lighting installation stretch over 400 meter long sandy beach of Siloso Beach in Sentosa island, Singapore.

Merely 15 minutes away from the city center of the state island of Singapore, Sentosa island is a small leisure island with a lavish nature contains attractions such as the Universal Studio and casino, beach clubs as well as numerous resort hotels.

The client, Sentosa Development Corporation, has a long-term vision of revitalizing the island as a nighttime destination for not only the tourists, but for the local residents to repeatedly visit the island to appreciate the evening stroll.

The large scale of a redevelopment work connecting from the inland to the beach is currently under construction and “Magical Shore“ was planned as an interim project until the redevelopment is due to complete in 2023.

LPA was engaged together with a Japanese digital creative agency to create an interactive lighting and projections, and with sound to respond to the rich biodiversity of the island. The concept was developed with the client to provide a multiple sensory experience along the 400 meter long beach with small islets floating on the seas.

Based on the narrative created, 15 minutes long four sequences were designed- Nocturnal Awakening, Rising Tides, Force of nature and The Last dance.

Because Magical shore had to be durable for at least the next three years daily operations, one of the biggest challenges for us was to come up with the technical solutions and set ups for the fully outdoor environment.

There 6 lighting elements in the installation；
1. interactive projections on the beach: as visitors walk on the beach, the sensor will create interactive projection such as water ripples, sparkles.
2. flood lights on the beach; blended with projections, flood light are washing the 400m of beach.
3. projection to trees on islets; organic projection on the tree appears every 15min.
4. uplights to the trees on islets; shows the tree alive and breathing by changing its’ colour and brightness.
5. beam lights on islets; happens occasionally, dancing around spout into the sky
6. fog light on islets; simple flood light to fog generated by 500 nozzles per islets, visualize the wind. No light when the wind blows away the fog.

All light elements are individually linked with DMX protocol and controllable together with sound speaker, sensors from centralized control room.

Multiple sensors are located throughout the site and sensing the power of wind, orientation of wind, number of people and even how aggressive the people on the beach. Artificial intelligence set up in the control system will get signals and choose a hundred of preset scene programmed for each lighting elements. As result, the lighting and sound are keep changing and never the same.

Right after the sunset, light and sound starts gradually and run 3 hours. The light and sound are flowing slow and relax, each element change individually most of the time. There is a peak moment of 3 min at 15 minutes interval, all elements start synchronizing and become fast and aggressive.

The lighting for this project is dealing with full colour but no white light, which is unusual for our practice as architectural lighting consultant. The challenge was to make the light environment not harsh but still attractive by coloured light. Colour of light was carefully selected mainly from the sky light colours observed in Sentosa Island and limited to the colour exists in the nature.

Working on the project with the digital creative company was a lot of learning. There were different terms and language used for our communication, and different approach of creative process in the beginning of collaboration but by understanding strength and specialty of each other and setting the same goal to achieve, we established great teamwork through the design process and site production.

The biggest challenge was the site construction. There were many site restrictions due to the location of the coast area. High level marine grade protection and consideration of equipment installation was required for all equipment preventing from rusting and vandalism. On the other hand, the project will be operated daily for the next 3 years, the installation had to be considered as permanent, which required enormous infrastructure work such as laying cable underneath beach sand and across the sea to islets.

We design the lighting to be flexible enough to adapt to the coastline and the beach formation that change day to day.

Normally, this type of light installation is expected to be showy and flashy to attract one-time audience, however, we managed to design timeless, never tiring lighting environment that visitor could feel coming back again and again, which we think the value we contributed to the project as lighting consultant.

Magical Shore is now attracting visitors as a new destination for a breezy nocturnal experience interacting with nature and light.

LPA: Lighting Planners Associates with 1-10 Inc