Originally featured in Architizer - written by Pat Finn.
After sixty years of scuttling through Penn Station, New York is finally seeing the light — one diamond skylight at a time.
More than half a century on, New Yorkers still lament the destruction of the original Penn Station. In the 1960s, the old Beaux Arts structure, with vaulted ceilings and dramatic skylights, was replaced with a cramped building bereft of natural light. As architecture historian Vincent Scully remarked at the time, “One entered the city like a god. Now one scuttles like a rat.”
Scully’s complaint may still be true for those entering the city through Penn Station, though dramatic improvements are underway. But for those coming to New York City through Newark Liberty International Airport Terminal A, a godlike entrance is now on offer. This is thanks in large part to the ingenious lighting and lighting control solutions provided by Acuity Brands Lighting (Acuity), which allowed Grimshaw Architects and STV to realize their luminous vision when they redesigned the terminal in 2023.
The new Terminal A is the largest design-build infrastructure project in New Jersey history. The project, which was delivered as part of a design-build consortium led by Tutor Perini/Parsons JV for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), had a budget of 2.7 billion dollars. Grimshaw and STV, who served as design architect and executive architect, respectively, realized an ambitious design that paid tribute to the airport’s modernist legacy while taking advantage of New Jersey’s abundant natural light. Glass, steel, sharp lines and, most of all, open spaces define the concept. When I flew into Terminal A from O’Hare this past winter, it felt like stepping into the future.
Incito™ cylinders by Gotham® deliver high-intensity, tightly controlled distribution that adds contrast, depth, and visual hierarchy within a space. Narrow field optics and multiple beam angles enable precise light direction, creating crisp highlights and layered illumination while maintaining strong visual comfort through effective glare control. A wide selection of mounting types, trims, sizes and finishes offers flexibility for seamless architectural integration.
“New Jersey is amongst the sunniest states in the US, and light is a consistent theme for the new terminal,” explains Grimshaw. “Large, diamond-shaped skylights and a gently folded, metal ceiling allow filtered daylight throughout the terminal experience.”
Daylight, however, is only available for, at most, 15 hours a day in New Jersey, and 9 hours at winter’s nadir. Terminal A, meanwhile, receives passengers 24 hours per day. The magic of Terminal A really hinges on the fluid transition between day and night — the fact that the spaces are filled with radiant, healthy light even at midnight. And this would have been impossible to achieve without the creative partnership of Acuity Brands Lighting.
Gotham®’s cylinder downlights do much of the heavy lifting in the areas where people tend to linger: ticketing, security and gate seating. These are spaces that can easily become visually chaotic, especially at peak hours. Here, the light is even, controlled and bright, yet never glaring; functional and unobtrusive.
Lighting a space as large and complex as a major airport terminal is about more than just choosing attractive fixtures and settling on brightness and temperature levels. For a lighting system to work effectively, the lights must automatically respond to changing light conditions within the space. And everything needs to be easily controlled by a centralized platform.
At Terminal A, this challenge was met with a coordinated system that pairs carefully chosen luminaires with a flexible and optimizable networked lighting controls system. Fixtures from Gotham® and MARK Architectural Lighting™ define the look and feel of the space, while nLight® controls are built into the fabric of the airport, helping ensure the lights function optimally. Sensors built into the light fixtures adjust to changing light conditions, promoting optimal illumination at all hours.
Available in recessed, pendant, surface and wall mount, MARK Architectural Lighting™’s SLOT is a full family of linear lighting solutions that can be configured with intersections to create open or closed patterns. SLOT offers a variety of lenses and shielding options, including top glow, baffles, flush, edge view or drop lenses; it is available in satin white, satin black, and satin silver finishes, or choose from a custom RAL finish.
The SLOT recessed linear lights from MARK Architectural Lighting™ take a different role. Stretched across ceilings and along concourses, these linear pieces reinforce the terminal’s geometry and help organize its vast interior. Visitors follow the lines almost without realizing it.
As Acuity’s site explains, “A complete array of optical distributions gives lighting designers the freedom and control to shape how a space is experienced. With wall graze, wall wash, batwing, and asymmetric optics, SLOT delivers light exactly where it’s intended, including enhancing surfaces, improving uniformity, and supporting the architectural intent of every project.”
Luminaires with networked embedded controls by nLight® are designed, manufactured, tested, and shipped with occupancy, daylight sensors and control devices factory-installed.
The individual luminaires are only part of the story. Throughout the terminal, sensors are constantly detecting changes in daylight and occupancy. As sunlight filters through the skylights, electric light recedes. As evening sets in, it returns, gradually and without drama. Late at night, when the crowds thin out, portions of the terminal soften rather than go dark, maintaining a sense of continuity without wasting energy. (Indeed: Terminal A is LEED Gold Certified, meaning it has earned the highest rating for sustainability.) The transitions are subtle enough that most passengers would never think about them. It just feels right.
All of this is coordinated through the nLight® networked lighting controls system, which connects the building into a single network. From an operational standpoint, it allows the terminal to function as a whole rather than a collection of parts. Lighting levels can be adjusted, zones can be redefined, and performance can be monitored without invasive changes to the infrastructure. Again, what Acuity offers is not just light fixtures but a totalizing system.
The result is a terminal that feels consistently luminous, regardless of the hour. While there are many points of entry to the New York metro area, Terminal A might be the most aesthetically appealing.
All images courtesy of Acuity Brands Lighting. Photography credits: © James Ewing / JBSA. To explore the full project and many others, see Acuity Brands Lighting’s Inspiration Gallery.
For architects looking to rigorously integrate lighting into their next design, read more about how Acuity Brands can elevate illumination.
Pat Finn is a high school English teacher and a freelance writer on art, architecture, and film. He believes, with Orwell, that "good prose is like a windowpane," but his study of architecture has shown him that a window is only as good as the landscape it looks out on. Pat is based in the New York metro area.
