Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde’s vision for ‘Smart Highways’ has been realised in the Netherlands with the opening of a light-absorbing road that glows-in-the-dark.
Located on Highway N329 near the city of Oss, the 500m stretch of road has been treated with foto-luminising powder that is ‘charged’ by the sun during the day, allowing road markings to glow for up to 10 hours at night.
The luminous coating, which was developed in conjunction with construction group Heijmans, reduces the need for street lamps and offers a more sustainable way to light up the road for motorists.
Roosegaarde first presented the idea back in 2012 and won the ‘Best Future Concept’ at the 2012 Dutch Design Awards and INDEX: award 2013.
The glow-in-the dark project is just the first stage of Roosegaarde’s vision to bring new interactive technologies to the world’s highways, with talk of designing weather markings, such as snowdrops, which would appear when the temperature reached a certain level.
Courtesy Designboom and Arts Technica
