RADIS BRIDGE, LA GOULETTE

TICAD 8 was held in Tunisia on August 27-28. This inclusive forum brings together heads of African countries, Japanese government and development partners. On this occasion, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan wished to offer a symbolic gift representing the hope for a bright future. A special lighting design by Motoko Ishii and Akari-Lisa Ishii in order to contribute to cultural exchange through the lighting on this bridge (260m long and 23m wide) specifically, because it was built by Japanese companies with loans in yen. Opened to traffic in 2009, it connects the northern and southern suburbs of La Goulette by helping to relieve congestion traffic and improve accessibility.

We created a symbolic lighting to mark the occasion of this diplomatc event but also so that it can then be used in a sustainable way. It includs several programs for different lighting patterns according to the holidays and events after TICAD.

At the first, we proposed 3 representative patterns. Red color light-up: Featuring the red and white of Japanese flag, and the red of Tunisian, it symbolizes the friendship of Japan and Tunisia. Green color light-up: Symbolic color of Africa represents the friendship between Africa and Japan. Yellow color light-up: Yellow is the color of hope. This pattern expresses the hope for Africa’s future.

Each LED projectors consists of 4 colors of light (red, green, blue and white), it is possible to create divers lighting patterns, finally more scenarios were proposed to give more choices to the user.

The environmental aspect hasn’t been forgotten, selected energy-saving, sustainable, and robust LED projectors (floodlighting fixtures) taking into consideration of economization of the running cost and maintenance friendly. Moreover, we succeeded the actual positions of the existing lighting fixtures (out of service) to install new ones. It is to optimize the cost for wiring and installation cost taking advantage of the existing cable conductor etc.

Photos credits: JICA / Kawahara