HADDAD | DRUGAN

Integrated art for the foyer of Palm Beach County’s Acreage Branch Library is built around a concept of light. The installation overlays phenomena of light onto cultural forms that tie to the site, and also filters the light through a cycle of production and consumption. 

The art elements include a photovoltaic “barcode” skylight that powers a suspended “orange tree” light sculpture.  As it enters through the skylight and interacts with the sculpture below, sunlight is color-filtered, reflected and refracted, harnessed as energy, and consumed. The projection of color from the skylight glass onto the light sculpture is a metaphoric overlay of modern (photovoltaic) productivity onto historic (agricultural) productivity of light in the Acreage.

The orange glass in both pieces is an homage to the historic orange groves of the Acreage, which have largely disappeared. The skylight glass will be colored and textured to simulate orange skin. The lines of a barcode, referencing ordering systems of libraries, are then applied in black enamel. The widest bands of the barcode will also have lines of photovoltaic cells laminated onto the outside surface of the glass. Power generated by the photovoltaic cells is transmitted from the skylight, through an exposed conduit on the wall, to a battery bank where it is stored for use by the light sculpture.

Solar projections of the barcode glass will stretch and bend as they are cast onto the white lightwell walls and white floor below.  The image continuously changes as the shaft of light moves through the space over the course of the day.

The focal point of the entry foyer is a suspended sculpture inspired by the cultural icon of the orange tree, but rendered here in forms and materials that react with light. “Leaves” are abstracted into flat diamond pieces made of mirrored and dichroic acrylic. Looking up into the center of the sculpture, the mirrors will reflect the people and space below up into the sculpture. When orange light from the skylight projects down onto the mirrors, shards of orange light will then be reflected out onto the ceiling and walls around the piece. The orange “fruit” of the tree is represented with colored glass globes lit with internal LEDs. The LEDs are powered by energy supplied by the photovoltaic skylight. 

A display panel in the foyer will illustrate the number of kilowatts being produced by the skylight and consumed by the light sculpture, giving the art an educational component that ties into the function of the library.