The leaves are not being lit by a bulb. The plant’s own metabolism produces a faint glow across leaves and flowers. From 19 to 22 September, an installation of luminescent plants will occupy a tea room and water garden at ROKU KYOTO.
The light does not come from outside
LEP, the developer, uses a bioluminescent system derived from luminous fungi and redesigned to work inside plants. The company says the reaction is integrated with plant metabolism, requiring neither an electrical supply nor an added glowing substrate.
A Kyoto Prefecture technology profile describes stable glowing tobacco and poplar plants created during the project. The materials for this exhibition, however, do not identify the species that will appear at the hotel. The photograph is therefore best read for the light across leaves and flowers, not used to guess the plant’s identity.
In the official photograph, green light runs through leaves on a branch against a dark background, with small points of light gathering at flower tips. Lower foliage remains dimmer, so changes in brightness follow the plant’s form rather than filling the scene evenly.
From tea room to water garden
The daytime Luminescent Tea Room runs from noon to 4 p.m. and again from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Plants will be placed in the tea room so their glow can be seen at close range while daylight still remains.
After sunset, the water garden becomes the Luminescent Lotus Garden. It is scheduled from about 7 to 11 p.m., extending works based on glowing plants and a full moon into an outdoor setting that includes the water.
LEP describes this as Japan’s first hotel display of luminescent plants to include outdoor areas. Dividing the event between tea room and water garden allows the same living light to be encountered close up by day and across a larger space at night.
A different role from uniform lighting
This is not a finished lamp designed to illuminate a room. LEP names light bright enough for reading as a future goal. For now, the exhibition uses the softer light of a growing plant as spatial expression within an ongoing research and development programme.
Mikiko Kamada directs the installation. By choosing a quiet hotel garden and tea room, the work places attention on brightness changing along veins and flower tips rather than on the largest possible output.
The organiser says the plants are handled under relevant rules, including Japan’s Cartagena Act. They are managed research and development plants in an exhibition, not ordinary houseplants offered for visitors to take home or cultivate.
Follow the plants from day into night
The free exhibition runs from 19 to 22 September. By day, visitors can move close to a leaf in the tea room; by night, they can follow connected points of light across the water garden. For four days, a faint green glow produced by living plants will appear in the garden at Takagamine.