Ode to Nanjing: OSRAM smart dynamic lighting solution invigorates the Fifth Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

The world record-breaking Nanjing Jiangxinzhou Yangtze River Bridge (also known as the Fifth Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge) recently opened to traffic. With a “bridge-tunnel” structure, the facility aims to greatly accelerate the city’s cross-river transportation and revives this historic town which now populated by nearly ten-million residents. 
This three-tower cable-stayed bridge spans the Yangtze River with the string-like cables as its most striking feature. To accentuate such a feature and improve transportation safety, the Nanjing Municipal Government planned a glorious lighting scheme consisting of four parts, demonstrating Nanjing’s glamour with its social and natural landscape, its cultural traditions as well and its modernity.

Connected lighting with the e:cue Sympholight 5

The lighting scheme adopted a total vertical solution from OSRAM. Featuring the e:cue control system Sympholight 5 as the core, it creates a magnificent color-changing lighting show with true connectivity. Lit by OSRAM customized LED floodlights, the three main towers are splashed with large shapes of bright color to fully manifest the bridge's grandeur. LED contour lights and LED wall washers are installed on both sides of the bridge, with a total length of over 10,000 meters, to precisely outline the structure. In order to enhance the effect, the project team also added LED beam lights to turn the bridge into a lighting strip over the Yangtze River.
The Sympholight 5 control system provides the project with lighting device management, project settings, effect programing and preview, DMX output query, API interface and other functions, and monitors the individual fixtures through the e:cue Lighting Control Engine 2 fx and SYMPL essential Nodes. The orchestration of lighting creates thematic color-changing scenes in red, gold, yellow, green and blue to bathe the entire bridge in a glamorous radiance, elevating the ancient yet modern city panorama to a new level. Management of the facility also becomes easy with Sympholight 5’s powerful programming capability, Web control interface and remote triggering functionality.  

The right lighting illuminates only what and where most needed

To avoid the impact of light trespass has on bridge traffic safety, water transportation, wildlife and environment, the concept of responsible lighting has been incorporated and underlined during the process. Through repeated on-site tests and software simulations, the project team eventually reduced the number of luminaires to a minimum without sacrificing the lighting effect, and successfully installed all LED fixtures at locations away from the structure to illuminate the cables from the outside in, providing the bridge with just the right lighting it needs.

The lighting delicately outlines the silhouette of the bridge as if to place a musical instrument on the Yangtze River, using the cables as strings and the lights as notes to compose an orchestration. The completion of the illumination not only gives the Fifth Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge a unique character, but also adds another beautiful attraction to the time-honored yet modern city of Nanjing.

System Integrator: Nanjing Streetlight Engineering Co., Ltd