Under the Waves (Aaltojen alla)
The work, completed in autumn 2024 on the facade of the Savilahti wastewater pumping station, is a collaboration between artist Kirsti Taiviola and lighting designer Riku Pirtilä. A light pattern resembling reflections on water flickers on the wall surface of the pumping station. The work is based on the optical qualities of glass, as the projections are created using hand-blown glass lenses that shape the light into patterns that resemble water.
Location: Savilahti wastewater pumping station
Year of completion: 2024
Lighting design: Kirsti Taiviola and Riku Pirtilä, Sweco Finland Oy
Electrical design: Simo Pitkänen, Sweco Finland Oy
Commissioned by: Kuopion Vesi
The designers
Kirsti Taiviola is an artist, designer and educator specialising in glass as a material. The common thread in her work has been an interest in the possibilities of light and glass as a means of communicating observations and making things visible. Taiviola’s works often pay homage to the traditional craft of glassmaking. In her works, she frequently uses hand-blown glass lenses, harnessing their optical qualities to produce a variety of light projections.
Riku Pirtilä is a lighting designer by profession who is also interested in dynamic lighting integrated into architecture and its use as a means of storytelling and communication. Pirtilä graduated as an architectural lighting designer from Hochschule Wismar, Germany. He previously worked as a lighting designer for Sweco Finland Oy, the company that also carried out the building services engineering design of the wastewater pumping station.
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