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18London · Speirs Major

A bench with its own reading light

At Elephant Park, the lighting is built around places to sit, and the paths are lit just enough to find them.

Dazzle Digest desk · from the linked project pages

Speirs Major gives Elephant Park a place to linger after dark.
Elephant Park, LondonLight beneath the timber seat shows the curve and gives the person sitting there a sheltered corner.Photo: Speirs Major Light Architecture

Speirs Major wrote the lighting masterplan for the wider Elephant Park development and was then asked to light the park itself, as a social hub after dark1. The approach shows in this photograph: the light is where people stop.

Benches either glow with integrated lighting or are picked out by individual ‘reading lights’, the studio says, to make comfortable places to sit and talk1. Lit paths help people find their way, trees and foliage get carefully directed highlights, and the design aims for a balance of light and darkness1.

The natural play area at dusk, where stone and water take the light.
Elephant SpringsThe natural play area at dusk, where stone and water take the light.Photo: Speirs Major

From the project

The play area, known as Elephant Springs, is lit with dappled projections on its multicoloured porphyry, and the light plays with the water jets and pools to recall sunlight on water1.

The man with his dog on this issue’s cover is sitting on one of the park’s lit benches. The same studio also lit the park’s Tree House pavilion, the next story.

More from the project

Another frame from the project page.
Parks after darkAnother frame from the project page.Photo: Speirs Major

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from these public pages. Open the original to check it, or to see more of the project.

  1. Speirs MajorSpeirs Major — Elephant ParkUndated page · checked 2026-09-28
Next · p.19Nothing points upThe Tree House, in the same park, sets a colour temperature and a rule: nothing points up.

Chapter 03 · Parks after darkRead it in the issue →

More from Parks after dark

p.16 · San Francisco · HLB LightingA hierarchy of light, fourteen acres widep.17 · London · Speirs MajorThe boardwalk that dims for batsp.19 · London · Speirs MajorNothing points up

Leave some dark.

This story is from the October 2026 Toronto issue of Dazzle Digest, a free monthly magazine about lighting and life after dark.

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Dazzle Digest is an independent magazine. Stories are written by the Dazzle Digest desk from the public pages linked under each one; photographs belong to the credited studios, makers and photographers and remain under rights review. No brand, studio or manufacturer in these pages is a sponsor.