Chromatics Specified For New Sunderland Station
Chromatics has been specified for the new Sunderland railway station which will transform the city centre gateway into a ‘station of light'.
The final phase of a £7 million project to transform the station's 140-metre platform areas is part of a £300 million programme by Nexus, which owns, manages and is modernising the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Nexus commissioned three artists, including one of the UK's leading light artists Jason Bruges, to work with architects and engineers on the project, which has seen a the creation of a 140-metre animated ‘light wall', produced using Chromatics. It runs along the length of platforms 3 and 4 at the station with an ever-changing display powered by thousands of individual LED units.
Chromatics is an exterior grade, lightweight, 100% opaque and coloured, shatterproof safety glass, laminate cladding panel. It allows designers to use a colour coated glass laminate that is thermally safe for external applications with a superior reflected image quality with zero light transmission and no possibility of 'show through' and no roller wave. These attributes made it the ideal product from which to produce the animated ‘light wall'.
The new station also features a series of 41 images of ‘everyday icons' of railway travel presented in a striking new way by Turner-prize nominated North East photographer Julian Germain, to hang permanently along the length of platforms 1 and 2. New tough glass panelling on all platform buildings using colour patterns by artist Morag Morrison - who devised the original brand image for the Sunderland Metro line when it opened in 2002 - create a more intimate waiting environment.
Sunderland Station is used by more than two million passengers a year, around three quarters of them boarding or alighting from 179 Metro trains daily. The station also boasts hourly Northern services to Tees Valley towns in one direction and Newcastle, Hexham and Carlisle in the other and there are now four Grand Central intercity services daily from Sunderland via York to London.
Nexus began the £7 million modernisation of Sunderland station in 2008 working to a masterplan by North East architects, Reid Jubb Brown and consulting engineers Arup. The work has been undertaken by main contractor BAM Nuttall
