"Inhabiting Light," an interactive architectural installation, will take form in late summer at Magnolia Glade in Nichols Arboretum. Catie Newell, Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan in Taubman, and her collaborator, Alli Hoag, Head of Glass and associate professor at Bowling Green, are working to create a unique structure using specialized glass building units called “Light Forms” designed to modulate and transform light. The structure’s form will feature a shared wooden bench, intersected by glass walls. The walls will create sheltered alcoves and nooks, providing opportunities to experience the piece in solitude or with company. As Alli shares, “We want to give space to people to be able to convene with loved ones or be alone and have some privacy, while also be connected with nature at the same time.” The Light Forms will transpose the natural light and colors present in the glade, shifting by the moment and the season. “If it's cloudy, if it's sunny, if it's starting to be nightfall, or sunrise or sunset, the Light Form  pieces end up transposing through reflection and refraction.” Catie describes. As the title invites, visitors can inhabit light themselves, immersed in its glow as they rest within the form. Their vision, Catie shares, is that “the person visiting is getting a chance to inhabit the incredible light of these spaces.” The installation will be up for at least two years, with the potential for extension.

Magnolia Glade, nestled in the valley of the arb near the river landing, is home to a rich and storied collection of magnolia trees. The site has a long history with the CS Mott Children's Hospital. Each year in October, Michigan Medicine care team members host the Walk to Remember, a time to grieve perinatal and newborn loss. Each year, they add a magnolia tree to the collection.  Having the memorial as the site of the installation has informed the way the creators think of it spatially.

“It gave us this really beautiful invitation to introspect about experiencing grief ourselves and thinking about what we could offer,” Alli shares, reflecting on the significance of the location. “It brought this really beautiful layer of meaning to develop the design plans, thinking about how we want to articulate the Light Forms in a specific way to serve that population.”

What is a Light Form? Light Forms are specially crafted, press-formed glass blocks. They have 10 sides, are hollow, and work like masonry units to be stackable, beautiful, and structurally sound. Catie Newell describes them as “cast glass modules that work architecturally, allowing light to transfer through them, aggregating together in several different tessellations to make spaces with different textures and optical qualities.” The duo is currently producing 2,000 of these glass pieces, with plans to scale up production with industry partners and create fully inhabitable structures in the future.

Light Forms are a creative solution to bringing more passive light into our built spaces that can often be disconnected from the cycles of day and night. In the normative architectural model, glass functions almost as an afterthought. As Alli describes, “When you look at architecture, it's often an opaque, geometric form. And we cut out these holes to let the light in. It disconnects us with nature.” Instead, Light Forms allow for light to be considered through the design process, connecting inhabitants to the circadian rhythms of the natural world while still providing privacy. “We started developing Light Forms as an architectural system that is caring for its occupants in that way,” Catie shares. “A lot of glass that exists right now is generally meant to be seen through. Ours is meant to, in a way, be looked at, where the light and the colors from the exterior are now becoming, in essence, literally, part of that wall.”

“Inhabiting Light” will serve as a proof of concept for Light Forms to be used more broadly in architecture. “The installation itself has its key priority of being that resonant space for the Magnolia Glade, but then also a space where we can show the unique attributes of the Light Forms, with the hopes that it is incorporated within more architecture in the world,” Catie explains. 

The project is a big group effort, working across departments and institutions, and has engaged Umich students as research assistants, helping with prototypes, diagram building, and background research. Catie and Alliʻs co-PI, Dr. Upali Nanda, Professor of Practice in Taubman, leads the HealthbyDesign Project. Last fall, she led a group of students dedicated to researching light in architecture, and they used “Inhabiting Light” as a case study. Once the installation is up, they will conduct qualitative interviews with people who engage with the piece to think through the impact that light and space have on people interacting with an architectural setting.

Work on the piece is currently underway, with structural engineering tests in progress, and Catie and Alli are making final decisions about details like base size and glue type as they work to bring “Inhabiting Light” to life. “It's a very exciting moment, finally linking everything together.” Catie shares. 

This concentrated effort now will translate into an impactful optical experience when the Light Forms find their home in the Arboretum later this summer. “I hope that the installation gives space and slowness to the Memorial Glade, allowing that space to have a little recognition of the beautiful memorial that it is.” Catie shares, “And that it's also somewhere that people find and visit multiple times, to get time out from the world or space to reflect.” 

Funders: 

• ARIA Arts Research: Incubation & Acceleration (UM)

• Institute for the Study of Culture and Society Fellowship (BGSU)

• Glanz Family Collaborative Research Award (BGSU)

• Taubman  School of Architecture Seed Funding (UM)

• UMOR Research Catalyst and Innovation Award (UM)

Partnerships and Teams: 

• MBGNA - Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum: Anthony Kolenic, Elizabeth Rickerd

• OPLUS - structural analysis, Omid Oilyan, Taubman College Alum

• Mary A Rackham Institute -  Dr. Christine Asidao

• CEE - Structural Engineering Lab, Dr. Jason McCormick

• CEE- Adjunct Lecture Terrence McDonnell, glass structures expert

• DOW - adhesive investigations

• Poesia - glass block production