Page 48 - Between light and shade

between light and shade, TRANSPARENCy and reflection

networks of veins, followed by horizontal vein-
lets, to power the lighting.

As for these sensors, it is also possible to
place ordinary mirrors on heliostats such that
they follow the sun’s trajectory and reflect the
rays as a beam of light in a constant direction.
This beam can then be reflected by one or more
mirrors, also stationery, to illuminate any area
of a building. It was these heliostats 37 that I
proposed in 2010 for the House of European
History project in the former Eastman Building
in Parc Léopold, Brussels [01/573, GM, Fig. 30]. A
set of mirrors, whose reflective surface is always
facing downward and is therefore sheltered from
vertical rain, reflects the sun’s rays vertically into
a light shaft, where they are diverted horizon-
tally, to enter the exhibition rooms. There, they
are finally reflected in converging, parallel or
divergent beams, to illuminate the objects exhi-
bited. The dark walls of the rooms are pierced
by black-walled cylindrical tubes that are long
enough (1m for a diameter of 20 cm) to prevent
transmission of the diffuse light originating from
the light shaft itself [Fig. 31].

37 I proposed them for the first time in 1996 for the reception
centre, below the North face of the Erasmus Hospital in Ander-
lecht, in order to “soak up the sun” (01/336) and, then, in 2000
to light the stage of the Aula Magna in Louvain-la-Neuve
(01/291).
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