Located in Drammen, the capital of the county of Buskerud, centrally located in the eastern and most populated part of Norway, the Drammen Spiral
is an unusual helix-shaped tunnel.
Opened for traffic in 1961, the tunnel is 1,650 metres long and in the shape of a helix, with six rising circles, in the same style as a multi-storey parking lot. Each rotation of the helix rises 22m, with a diameter of 70m. The tunnel emerges at a summit 180m above the town on Skansen Ridge, where there are parking facilities and a cafe.
In 2020 the tunnel went through extensive renovation and was reopened on 12 December 2020, bringing with it a dramatic LED colour changing lighting installation.
Senior lighting designer Kathrine Hjelmeset from Rambøll describes the concept of how the LED colour changing lighting changes throughout the day:
Now you can experience the six floors with different lighting that changes throughout the day. The concept for the light design has been the variations of the sky colors throughout the day. Colors inspired by, among other things, dawn, sunset, blue hour and the northern lights. You will experience different lighting in the tunnel depending on what time of day you drive through it.
In addition, a new troll family has moved in and is highlighted with lights. Drammen municipality, through project manager Heidi Strandvik, has seen the value of effect lighting and experience in the tunnel.
Controlled by DMX to achieve the highest possible degree of control and flexibility, it was decieded to run DMX over fibre solution due to a lot of electromagnetic noise in the tunnel. All luminaires – QUANTUM, LIGHTALK, and MIC, are individually addressed and can be controlled separately from
each other.
For more details about Spiralen Tunnel project at https://www.ligman.com/spiralen-tunnel-nor-000001/
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