Luminarium lights up the City of Discovery

A GIANT sensory maze has been unveiled in Dundee city centre as part of a popular summer festival.

The 182ft by 105ft luminarium has been set up outside Caird Hall as the Dundee Summer Streets Festival returns for 2019.

Made up of 12 “outer domes” the miracoco luminarium, created by Architects of Air, is inspired by the Lotus Temple in Delhi and seeks to create a calming and sensory experience for people of all ages.

Construction of the inflatable dome, which has an 80-person capacity, began on Wednesday with the finishing touches made yesterday morning before its opening to the public this weekend.

A s mall team based in Nottingham took around four to six weeks to create the structures, which are made, stitched and glued by hand.

Ashley Moran Nunn, luminarium manager, said: “We have been creating these luminariums since the early 90s.

“We’ve toured over 30 countries around the world. The reaction is always the same – wonder and awe.

“It’s very much a calming experience for people and their families.

“They are fully wheelchair accessible. It’s for everybody. We’ve had babies as young as two days old and people as old as 100.”

Claire Dow, principal events officer for Dundee City Council, said: “The streets festival is all about making Dundee vibrant, exciting and fun throughout the holidays.

“City Square tends to be the highlight so we were looking for something that had spectacle and colour and was a bit different.

“The luminarium ticks all those boxes and it’s so exciting because you can’t tell from the outside how magical it is on the inside.

“I met the people who designed them at an event in Milton Keynes and had been in one in Edinburgh so I knew exactly what it was.

“I was encouraged because there were other people in the city who knew their work and were very supportive of bringing it to the city.

“At the end of last summer I knew that we wanted it, but we couldn’t afford it.

“We needed to raise all the sponsorship.

“In the scheme of events like this it is very reasonable but, as a council, we have to work in partnership.

“The local businesses have been amazing. They’ve got right behind it and have been brilliant at supporting it. That partnership that helped to make it happen is particularly special because we won’t do things by ourselves these days,” she added.

Ticket sales for the luminarium have been “phenomenal” so far, with all of the attraction’s prebooked time slot tickets already sold out.

However, there are still a number of tickets available to be purchased on the day, although you will be expected to queue.

The festival is sponsored by the Overgate Shopping Centre, as well as game developer Ninja Kiwi, Insights Learning and Development and Unesco City of Design.