Circles Unity – Channelside Tunnel Lights

Serving as a gateway into downtown from South Tampa, this project called “Circles Unity” is located on Channelside Drive at The Tampa Convention Center. Circles Unity is a series of custom, color-changing, synchronized LED light rings which are programmed to display various color sequences and patterns. This harmoneous project provides unique, artistic views from every position or angle while migrating through this downtown tunnel. Circles Unity helps to beautify the city’s downtown. WG provided the Structural and Electrical Engineering design services to help make this project a reality. WG’s structural engineering team worked directly with the artist, Ewrin Redl, to bring this project to life. In addition to providing the analysis and design for the aluminum light frame structures, WG also conducted a wind load analysis to determine the required anchorage of the light frames to the existing masonry wall in order to support the lighting structures, effectively. WG’s electrical design team worked with various vendors to efficiently design the lighting power distribution to each of the controllers. The team performed voltage drop calculations to determine the necessary wire size to handle the electrical loads for the long distances. They designed the new electrical service in order to provide enough power to handle the lighting loads, and they also engineered the data loops between all the lighting control cabinets for coordinated communications. To enhance the the project, WG designed some additional up-and-down lighting within the tunnel to provide ambient lighting.

Project Location: Tampa, Florida

Project Scope: Structural and Electrical Design and Consulting

Project Collaborators: BDG Architects