As an antidote to the midwinter blues, art collective Greyworld were commissioned by fruit juice brand Tropicana (as part of their Brighter Mornings campaign) to create a giant, uplifting sunrise over Trafalgar Square. It measured 9m in diameter, weighed two and a half tons and gave off over four million lumens of light, the equivalent of 60,000 light bulbs.
Andrew Shoben, founder of Greyworld said: "There are very few moments more spectacular and uplifting than watching an early morning sunrise. We have tried to capture the evocative nature of this natural phenomenon and share it with the public by creating our own urban sun."
The solution created by Nippy Industries involved using a 100 tonne crane to lift and suspend the sun structure and stabilise everything through the use of a steel tension rope cable running from the boom to the floor on self-lubricating guides. This was held down with a four tonne ballast weight.
A double layered trackway was installed to get the crane into position and additional rubber matting was placed underneath to offer more protection to the pavements.
"A crane this size isn't normally not allowed onto Trafalgar square," comments Steven. "But because I've done a number of projects here, including the London 2012 Olympic Celebrations, the authorities give me special dispensation."
In addition to the local authority, Steven had to prove to the crane hire company (Ainscough Crane Hire), and in turn the crane manufacturer (Liebherr), that this project could be done safely without damaging their equipment.
"So you can see why the process took about six months," comments Steven. "There was just so much detail to cover."
Over a six month development period Steven worked closely with Neil Gavin, the technical director at Greyworld who built the giant sun structure. Steven's input was important because the way the sun would eventually be lifted needed to be fundamentally integrated into to the overall design. The outer skin was made from a flame retardant PU coated Nylon which enveloped a truss structure. Inside the structure were 48 lamps (made up of 5k and 2K Fresnels) plus two fans for ventilation. The unit pulled 210kW of power which was delivered from a 350 KVA mobile generator.
"With so much power to handle, the heavy power cables were a challenge to rig" remarks Steven. "They alone weighed 1.2 tonnes I had to devise a way of putting that much weight down the crane boom which was 52 metres long."
He continues "We were essentially using a crane in a way that was very unconventional. And because this was not standard practice, I had to demonstrate to the crane designers and manufacturers that it could be done. I'm just glad that the weather was kind to us and we had perfect conditions for the rig and de-rig."
(Claire Beeson)
