Treewalk Nightlights

Treewalk
Nightlights

Located within Rotorua’s Redwood Forest which attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually. At the time of completion in 2016, it was the world’s longest suspended walkway. The walk, consisting of 23 elevated swing-bridges and living platforms, showcases one of Rotorua’s most visited natural attractions.

Articles by David
May 15 2024

We partnered with the Redwoods Treewalk to create an iconic nocturnal tourism experience:

Nightlights. It is New Zealand’s first design-led tourism experience.

The new night-time experience will offer visitors and locals the opportunity to explore Rotorua’s majestic Redwood forest under the shroud of darkness; illuminated by our lights.

Case Study

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The Concept

The idea to marry design and tourist-attraction remains relatively unexplored in New Zealand and enhancing an already magnificent environment like the Redwoods was no easy task. We worked hard with arborists at the Treewalk to place the thirty (some 2.5m tall) lantern-like lights amongst the 115-year-old redwood trees.

In addition to this lighting, over forty infinite colour spots and feature lights will illuminate the redwoods, native ground cover and tree ferns/punga(Maori).

Māhanga forest community. How many different species can you spot all living together here—and there will be thousands more that you can’t see. It is this variety that makes the community.

We were excited to take on the Nightlights challenge, initially finding inspiration in New Zealand native birds; the Ruru (NZ Owl), Karearea (NZ Falcon) and the Miromiro (Tomtit). Creating outdoor lighting was challenging especially for the forest environment.

The lights needed to feel weightless, yet be able to survive the conditions. Some are suspended over 25 metres above the ground, with others installed to circle the trees. In the giant scale of the redwood grove they had to be much larger than most lights we make.