A13 Artscape

Holding Pattern

Holding Pattern is a light work clustered beneath the flyover of the A13 at Lodge Avenue.

It was designed by Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone, in collaboration with Tom de Paor.

The work consists of 74 stainless steel needles, 5.5. metres high, their tips formed by a blue airport taxiway light.

The location of each needle is organised according to the geometry of the roads, the principle axes being the line of Ripple Road and the line of the A13, which are projected to form a grid of narrow granite strips.

At each intersection is a needle creating a plateau of light, which takes on a different form depending on the direction from which it is approached.

The title 'Holding Pattern' contains a number of references; relating equally to flight and airport procedures for take off and landing, reflecting its position beneath a flyover and flight path, as well as to interacting elements containing or 'holding' a pattern.

Holding Pattern concept|

A large scale light installation at the Lodge Avenue roundabout at the junction of the A13 and the Ripple Road.

It thickens the space which straddles the zone of light industry to the south and the edge of the Becontree housing program of the 1930s with the Rippleside Cemetery to the north: the gateway between Barking and Dagenham from the arterial road.

The work consists of 76 129mm diameter 5.5 metre high stainless steel bespoke light columns, their tips formed by a blue airport taxiway luminaire.

With very strong peak intensity, they create by night a vivid blue constellation.

The height of the lights corresponds to and extends beneath the underside of the existing metal flyover as it crosses the roundabout.

In strict lines a parallax effect is established that accentuates the movement around the roundabout.

Here traffic ascends to and pierces the plateau of the halo, meeting this new datum and traversing a field of blue light momentarily, before descending again beneath.

The precise location of each of the columns is dictated by the geometry of the existing roads, the principle axes being those of the historic Ripple Road and the A13 itself.

These axes have been duplicated and projected to produce a deformed spatial mesh across the whole of the central island.

This organisation is extended through the ground surface as the close mown grass ellipse of the island is intersected by 3 linear kilometres of 300mm wide granite strips.

At each intersection of these granite lines a steel needle is inserted.

5 fastigiate trees (Tilia Cordata) complete the spatial enclosure.

By day, the resultant landscape has a delicate presence as a filter of polished columns through which its hinterland is variously viewed.

The place contains a number of moments at which the sense of the work is most pronounced.

The active geometry and its relationship to the surrounding suburban fabric is apparent only from precise vehicle trajectories and vantage points around it, the needles focusing into alignment momentarily as the viewer passes.

Holding Pattern artwork