Newell’s ‘Inhabiting Light’ installation to be completed by end of summer

A new outdoor alcove designed by Taubman College Architecture faculty and featuring a light-inhabiting glass installation will take shape this spring and summer at the University of Michigan Nichols Arboretum. 

Professor of Architecture Catie Newell and Alli Hoag, head of glass and associate professor of glass at Bowling Green State University, are constructing “Inhabiting Light” this spring for testing before final installation in the arboretum’s Magnolia Glade. The structure will provide a space that promotes healing for those who are grieving.

The interactive installation will be built with Light Forms — specially crafted, press-formed, prismatic glass blocks that allow visitors to experience nature with privacy. The reflective, transparent surface also offers continually changing views and tessellations for meditation.

The 10-sided, hollow glass blocks work like stackable masonry units and offer a creative solution for allowing passive light into built spaces. Newell and Hoag are producing 2,000 of them, with plans to scale up production with partners in the future; the installation also serves as proof of concept for Light Forms to be used more broadly in architecture.

Newell and Hoag developed the project with Upali Nanda, professor of practice in architecture at Taubman College, who is working with her HealthByDesign teams and classes to study the relationship between light and health.

“Inhabiting Light” received funding from the U-M Office of the Vice President for Research and the U-M Arts Initiative’s Arts Research: Incubation & Acceleration grant program last year.

Read more about the latest on the project in the University Record.