Planning of the exterior lighting system
Planned in 1840 by architect Richard Upjohn and consecrated five years later, the Trinity Church is one of the oldest church in North America.
Now surrounded by the tall buildings of Wall street in New-York (Upjohn would certainly not have made that prediction!), the construction exposes rich details pertaining to the neo-gothic style: carved stone, sculptures, bronze doors etc.
In March 2001, the city was planning a replacement of the street lighting fixtures. This opened the door for a proposal to illuminate the exterior of the building.
To be able to convince the authorities to accept the project, we created highly detailed lighting simulations with a professionnal 3D lighting simulation package.
One of the most difficult task of the project was to model the church accurately: virtually no data was available, except for a set of hand drawn elevations dating from 1930s!
Unfortunately, the project was put on hold by the 9/11 attacks on the WTC where the church was lightly damaged, although some of the lighting concepts where implemented on the front tower later on.
Martin Shaffer and Associates
lighting studies and simulations: