This article was taken from the August 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Connecting nine subway lines and four stations, the New Fulton Center transit hub in Manhattan will also (eventually) link to New Jersey's PATH system. Thanks to some brilliant design, the $1.4 billion (£833 million) project, which opened in late June, will let natural daylight into some of its deepest, darkest parts.
The light enters through a 16-metre skylight. Then it encounters something called the Sky Reflector-Net, a gigantic mesh-like structure sheathed in hundreds of aluminium reflectors. These bounce the light into the transit centre and even down to the mezzanine level, four stories underground. Artist James Carpenter, whose design firm collaborated on the project, says it's a little like an Art Deco-era theatre with the sky painted on the ceiling: "It's a way of recapturing that idea using materials technology and optics."
New York isn't the only city getting its shine on; subterranean structures worldwide, from Denver's Union Station to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, are deploying architectural flair to inject a glorious dose of vitamin D into our fluorescent-lit existence. "Daylight is very much about humanising an environment," says Vincent Chang, a partner at Grimshaw Architects, which also worked on the Sky Reflector-Net. The campaign to light up the London Underground starts here.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
