Art Goes Solar on Canadian Wind Tower

Imagine a wind tower with stained glass illuminated by solar energy. It’s happening at Regent College, a graduate school of Christian studies affiliated with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

The stained glass was designed by Sarah Hall, and is titled “Lux Nova”. The column contains an array of solar cells that collect energy during the day, and creates what the article calls, “a luminous column of light flowing like a waterfall in silvery blue, violet and white.” The ever changing rainbow of color is created by 12 dichroic glass crosses, and woven through the waterfall of light, is the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic.

The artist was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 2002, and attended the architectural glass program at Swansea College of Art in Wales. If you’d like to see more of Ms. Hall’s design, this is the link to her website.

The 12-meter wind tower is used as a natural ventilation system for the new, $10 million underground theology library building. The tower was designed by architect Clive Grout in collaboration with Walter Frankl Architects.

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