Light Tube

ABOUT

Incorporating a heliostat to track the path of the sun, the Light Tube distributes and diffuses sunlight within this five storey office building in central London.

The light-tube proposal builds on the earlier heliostatic light-tube project by Carpenter/Norris Consulting that was completed in 2001 in Washington DC, USA, in which a 36m long light tube with a tapering internal cone of prismatic glass and an external diffuser of stretch fabric effectively introduced daylight deep within a new office space. (A heliostat is a computer controlled powered mirror that tracks the path of the sun to produce a constant beam of daylight at a specific angle).

In this project the light-tube is for the five storey atrium of the Apple Computers headquarters, London which is located above the Apple Store. The design proposes to install a heliostat on the roof of the building to reflect daylight down within the deep, five storey atrium, distributing it to the intermediate floors, and ultimately to a focal element on the Apple floor. The tube uses interlocking bent diffused glass panels to construct a structural glass tube approximately 1.8m in diameter and 15m high.