A Light and Sound Transit

by Hans-Peter Kuhn

Leeds - 2006-2009

A Light and Sound Transit is an installation by Berlin-based artist, Hans Peter Kuhn, with thousands of LED lights generating a random pattern on one of the two walls of the Light Neville Street underpass every day.

This project was born from the creation of a new district south of Leeds station. The only link between the city and this neighborhood was the underpass nicknamed Dark Neville Street which was considered a cut-throat by the city's inhabitants. Dark, noisy and dirty, the idea came to transform it through architecture, light and sound.

The design and technical parts were covered by Arup in collaboration with the architect Irina Bauman and the artistic advisor Sue Ball. A pioneer of auralization and artistic collaborations, Arup suggested very early on to collaborate with a sound artist and Sue Ball introduced Hans-Peter Kuhn. Since it was impossible to separate pedestrians from road traffic with a partition, the idea was to soften the acoustic conditions and noise levels and to incorporate sound art to cover the residual noise of traffic noise.

Sebastien's role was to provide the acoustic design of the underpass based on acoustic treatment absorbing the sound emitted by the traffic and to create auralisations serving as a proof of concept which was presented to the representatives of the city of Leeds in the SoundLab in London in 2005.

This auralisation included the presentation of the various acoustic treatment options such as wall treatment, ceiling treatment (refused because Network Rail, the operator of the railway lines and owner of the latter, needed to maintain its access without hindrance) and on the floor with an anti-rain bitumen surface with the characteristic of also being a good acoustic treatment. This auralisation also integrated the sounds provided by Hans-Peter Kuhn mixed with the sounds of the city and the passage of traffic.

This auralisation convinced the city of Leeds to invest £4.6m in the project.

The result was a sound and light sculpture, creating a strange, modern and previously dilapidated stretch of road.