Location: Redmond, WA
Lighting Design: WATT / Jason Neches Principal & Senior Lighting Designer
Architect: FTL Design Engineering Studio (tensile canopy)
Landscape Architect: AECOM (bridge hardscape & planting)
Size: 1,100 ft long pedestrian and cyclist bridge (48,000 sq ft area) spanning over more than 20 lanes of roadway and two sets of communter rail tracks.
Completed: 2024
Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA had grown over the decades to cover roughly 500 acres, with over 125 buildings and more than 15 million square feet of office space. A major highway splits the campus in half, making circulation between Microsoft’s East and West campuses cumbersome, often requiring shuttle buses.
The extension of a commuter rail system along with a new station at Microsoft’s doorstep spurred the creation of a new pedestrian bridge that links the rail station to Microsoft’s east and west campuses. The cleaved campuses were now rejoined.
The span also connects users to a bus rapid transit stop, a regional bike trail and restaurant and retail spaces on both sides of the highway.
Above the bridge, a tensile membrane structure protects pedestrians and cyclists from the notorious Pacifc Northwest weather.
WATT’s task was to provide feature lighting for the bridge's tensile canopy and ambient lighting for bridge occupants, while preventing glare to bridge occupants and highway drivers below. Our self-impossed challenge was to hide / integrate the light fixtures as best as possible, to provide a compelling experience and sense of place.
Uplights are mounted within rings suspended below the tensile canopy. Full scale mockups and computerized calculations were performed to validate ambient light levels and uniformity.
Lights integrated into precast benches provide drama and crisp highlights / contrast to the soft, indrect light from the canopy.