Lithuanian life of lights
Light in the season of darkness is something Kaunas knows all about. Not only is it the second largest city in Lithuania and a strong economic centre, it also has St. Nicholas as its patron saint and calls itself the Baltic Christmas Capital. In keeping with this title, once late autumnal darkness sets in, Kaunas’ citizens fill their city with a thousand festive lights, illuminating historic buildings and squares. Orchestrating light was also a key factor in the construction of a new commercial and office building in the south of the city. The elongated, two-storey building, with its reinforced concrete frame construction, stretches along a busy main road in a diverse, suburban location. Its façade, fashioned in anthracite-coloured metal and glass, provides great transparency and allows daylight to flood into the rooms from both the east and the west. At dusk, the building becomes highly visible as the light it casts turns the glass oblong into a luminous strip and catches the eye of passing motorists. To add yet more festive brilliance, the architects, Alaune and Sarakauskas, have placed naturAL Copper ALUCOBOND® tray panels in vertical lines in front of the glass façade. As the building is set behind a wide car park, a road and low neighbouring buildings, the panels reflect the sun in warm, golden tones even when it is low in the autumn sky and the road itself is already darkened by long shadows. The tray panels on each storey are installed on the façade in a staggered fashion, creating two rhythmic stripes, which change the façade appearance depending on the speed a car drives past. This kinetic, shimmering façade is also effective in darkness, when the relationship between light and dark is reversed. Then the façade takes centre stage and appears, of course, striped. Some of the panels have a pattern of cut-outs and generate plays of light in the interior or on the façade in the dark. So, instead of speeding past the building at dusk, if you pause and take a moment, you will see twinkling lights through the perforated metal. The building is a festive Christmas lantern. All year round.
Project: Longas, Kaunas | Lithuania
Architect: Vygantas Alaune & Jonas Sarakauskas, Vilnius | Lithuania
Fabricator: UAB LR group, Vilnius | Lithuania
Installer: UAB Riktinga, Garliava | Lithuania
Façade System: Tray Panels Special Design
Year of Construction: 2019
Product: ALUCOBOND® PLUS naturAL Copper
Photos: Evaldas Lasys