Iconic cities come to life in this custom wood table series, their resin streets and waterways glowing through grids of raised wooden architecture, all sitting on top of wrapping thin and dark steel supports.

Crafted by Wood Designs in Warsaw, this array of oak surfaces includes cultural capitals like New York, Berlin, London and Paris, but buyers can select a specific city or neighborhood as well.

In each piece, a layer of resin on top flattens out and protects the surfaces for everyday use, while red, blue and green resins are lit up from below, an effect making the roads and rivers look like retro etchings on a giant circuit board.

“The guiding principle of each of our products is that it is unique and also gives the interior a character in which it is located. I want my products users to give a sense of uniqueness. We believe that every detail matters.”

Charged during the day and lighting up at night, this beautiful bicycle trail outside the town of Lidzbark Warmiski is designed to improve safety for riders out after dark.

Luminescent phosphor can hold emit light of various colors, but blue was selected to match the surrounding landscape and conjure associations with the sky (the source of the path’s power). Once deployed, the passive system recharges itself, obviating the need for connectivity or continual maintenance.

Though the technologies behind the effects differ, the path in Poland was inspired in part by the Starry Night bike path created in the Netherlands by Studio Roosegaarde. Both are proofs of concept, tests meant in part to demonstrate the potential and durability of this trail-blazing lighting strategy.

Other illumination options were considered, but this glow-in-the-dark approach was deemed both appealing and cost-effective by the Board of Regional Roads. Adjacent pedestrian paths are also bracketed by glowing blue lines and denoted for persons on foot with likewise-illuminated path signage underfoot.

In the early 2000s, the city of Glasgow, Scotland, changed over to blue street lighting in an effort to improve the appearance of the city, but areas with the newly blue lights saw an unexpected and disproportionate decrease in crime.

No one could say for sure whether there was a causal correlation, but half a world away another city followed suit – Nara, Japan, experimentally began turning their street lamps blue. They also saw a decrease in crime.

In  the years that followed, similar deployments were tested, including the addition of over 150 blue lights to an expressway near Tokyo, aimed at reducing accidents.

The Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. even changed the color of eight lights on the ends of platforms at Gumyoji Station in Yokohama, Japan, to curb track-jumping suicides. A subsequent report showed that in the years following, the station saw no suicide attempts (after previously being the site of multiple suicides per year).

There are a number of theories about why the blue light could be causing a decrease in criminal behavior.

Some argue the association of blue with police presence, except: Japanese police use mostly red lights.

Another theory posits that blue light has a calming effect, feeling more pleasant than orange or red. Indeed, studies have shown that blue lights (associated with calm waters and open skies) can reduce stress responses in fish and be used to treat SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in humans.

Of course, it is also possible that the new colored lights are simply different and unfamiliar enough to cause people to feel awkward engaging in illicit or dangerous behavior where they are present. And if that is the case, changing all the public lights in the world to blue might be at best temporary fix, working until people get used to the new blue lighting. Experts have warned not to read too much into the effect, regardless, since the causal mechanism or connection has not yet been definitively determined.

Floating above an 18,000-square-foot area of Dutch land that would be underwater were it not for defensive measures, the ethereal effect hovers between simulated aerial floodwater and imitation aurora borealis.

A temporary work in Westervoort, this latest pieced dubbed ‘Waterlicht’ by Daan Roosegaarde was created using LED projectors located on surrounding dykes, highlighting the essential role of flood prevention technology in keeping so much of the Netherlands dry. As the beams cross in the air, moved slowly up and down by motors, the effect seen in these images is created.

Visitors walking along those adjacent barriers perceive the illumination like an eerily lit surface of water below – those passing below the plane of light see something akin to the Northern Lights, normally a natural atmospheric effect reserved for rare and special conditions. “we create a virtual flood. Walking on the dike the light lines are perceived as high water, once in the flood channel you find yourself in an underwater world.”

The work was commissioned by the Dutch water board to keep up awareness about this vital element of the country’s infrastructure. “In Waterlicht people experience what the Netherlands would look like without its dykes. Awareness is crucial, because the Dutch (water)artworks need every day maintenance and our national water awareness is the foundation of that maintenance.”

No stranger to working with nighttime illumination, Roosegaarde is famous for other works including a night-lit bicycle path in the style of Van Gogh as well as schemes for glow-in-the-dark highway infrastructure.

Half-forgotten historical urban rivers are set to resurface in San Francisco as part of a civic installation project designed to fill in their historical footprints with a bright blue work of temporary art. The project will stretch across roads, sidewalks and other urban staples with colorful swaths reflecting part the city’s hidden history.

It might seem obvious upon reflection, but few people realize just how many surface waterways ebbed and flowed on the surface of a city like this before development forced their paths into culverts, tunnels and sewers. Set to debut at the Market Street Prototyping Festival (more on that below), this piece explores the intersection of past and present through installation art. Still at a conceptual stage it remains to be decided whether the work will involve physically painting the streets or projecting light down on them from above.

From project creator Emily Schlickman: “Every city has invisible histories embedded within its landscape. Up until the 19th century, ephemeral streams ran through nearly every valley in San Francisco, channeling rainwater to peripheral tidal estuaries. This project, ‘Ghost Arroyos’ seeks to reveal these forgotten waterways of the city through a simple, but powerful intervention. Visitors … will be invited to trace the path of the waterways while listening to a curated recording of hydrological soundscapes and oral histories.”

Emily is a designer living and working in the Bay Area. She is interested in the intersection of landscape processes, art, and systemic design and aims to incorporate these issues into her work. Hers is just one of dozens of crowd-selected projects set to line Market Street during the festival and spanning multiple neighborhoods.

CityLab writes more about the historical waterways of this urban environment: “There was once a time when San Francisco was glistening with creeks and arroyos, or streams that stay dry for part of the year. When Spanish explorers arrived in what’s now the Lower Haight in the late 1700s, they found a healthy brook and named it Fuente de Dolores. Down in the Mission there was a gulch whose water helped sustain cattle and crops. In 1878, the municipal government took another natural channel under modern-day Cesar Chavez Street and turned it into a sewer.”

Some additional information on the festival itself (with a further video introduction above): “Market Street will transform into a public platform, showcasing exciting ideas for improving our famed civic spine and how we use it. Winning entries, as diverse and exciting as the people of San Francisco themselves, will be brought to life for three days along Market Street’s sidewalks, where millions of pedestrians from all walks of life will have the chance to experience, explore, and interact with the prototypes.”

Like other projects in the mix, Ghost Arroyos is designed to be interactive and community-driven. “The goal of the Prototyping Festival is to unite diverse neighborhoods along Market Street, encouraging these vibrant communities to work with designers, artist and makers to build a more connected, beautiful San Francisco”