dbell

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, UK

The new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has been gaining plaudits from sports and architecture aficionados alike. With lighting designed by BuroHappold, in collaboration with Populous, F3 Architects and Zumtobel Group, it is a shining beacon for other teams to aspire to.

Sports fans around the world will already be keenly aware of the newly opened Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as until its official opening this April, it was one of the most hotly anticipated new sporting venues in the world. 

Located on the site of the London club’s former White Hart Lane ground, the 62,062-seater multi-purpose venue will not only be home to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, but will also host National Football League (NFL) games - it is the first purpose-built NFL stadium to be constructed outside of the United States - concerts, and other major events.

More than just a stadium, the new facility features a vast array of hospitality venues, from the Chairman’s Lounge and VIP Boxes to the Tunnel Club - an exclusive restaurant that looks out onto the tunnel as players enter and leave the pitch, the 65-metre-long Goal Line Bar - the longest continuous bar in Europe, and an in-house microbrewery for local craft brewery Beavertown.

The stadium - the second largest club stadium in the UK behind Manchester United’s Old Trafford - was developed by Populous and F3 Architects, who worked in collaboration with BuroHappold and Lighting Partners Zumtobel Group on the lighting design.

The lighting design was developed as part of a large, collaborative consultation process between Populous, F3 and BuroHappold. Both architecture firms had visual preferences, and the lighting designers would advise on lighting arrangements and specifications that could be incorporated in order to achieve their vision together, while BuroHappold also brought ideas and lighting concepts to the table, which assisted to provide a well co-ordinated and cohesive lighting scheme.

This collaborative effort aimed to provide a comfortable and safe environment for players, employees and visitors alike, while providing perfect illumination for the many different requirements, from the fan experience, to the player’s facilities, media zones and behind-the-scenes areas.

With player wellbeing being of paramount importance, considerable attention was given to circadian rhythms in the changing rooms, physio and relaxation spaces, meaning that the lighting had to be catered for the different times of day when the players used the facilities. With this in mind, the design team used Zumtobel’s Panos Infinity, with a white-light range of 2700-6500K, which offers the user a range of options to adjust the colour temperature to the respective application. The Austrian manufacturer’s Slotlight tunableWhite and RGBW LED tape has also been utilised in this area, while the players’ tunnel has been illuminated using Custom Active Light Wall - two huge stretch ceiling fittings that were personalised in Zumtobel’s Dornbirn factory.

Complementing these approaches, JPR Lighting was commissioned by F3 Architects for the design, development, manufacture and full on-site installation of bespoke signature lighting for a number of specialist areas in the stadium. This included the Players Lounge - a space where players are given a psychological boost before each game.

Subliminal hexagon design details throughout the lounge intend to help the players focus prior to the game. Key to the success of the space, the design themes are echoed by the lighting. The hexagon ceiling system comprises acoustic sections and light boxes for a complete ceiling system. The light boxes include a track and sheet system with LED sources.

For the hospitality areas, BuroHappold worked closely with Populous to develop concepts that would capture the various vibrant interior spaces. A key requirement for the stadium was to create internal spaces where visitors could spend time and indulge for longer periods than normally associated with football stadiums, prolonging the matchday experience and inviting fans to arrive early and leave late.

“Tottenham has such a great and growing industry of local producers of food and drink, and we really wanted to showcase that. So we created this street food meets beer hall environment, and it’s a fantastic place to meet both before and after the game,” said Chris Lee, Managing Director of Populous.

“We wanted to produce an environment where the spectators can choose where they want to go. Some of the stuff we loved about American sports and American stadiums is the idea that you came for the whole day, and you could choose to go to different bars or restaurants and have different experiences during the day or from trip to trip.”

To differentiate the plethora of different areas that fans can experience, each hospitality area has its own distinct individual character and identity, which is reflected in the lighting.

Lighting was developed to ensure that there were distinct layers, creating depth and providing visual emphasis to areas of interest. For the most part, a system of lighting included for the general illumination of each space with horizontal lighting was provided by downlights, track spotlights or surface mounted canister downlights, such as acdc’s Novus and Novus Mini downlights. This was then complemented with emphasis on the illumination of vertical surfaces. 

To bring the whole scheme together, decorative lighting was added via suspended pendants and integrated lighting within the furniture and architectural structures. These three components of lighting assist to provide the layering required, while the use of dimming to reduce the background lighting provides further emphasis to the feature lighting, enhancing the character of each individual area or space.

Alongside the Players Lounge, JPR Lighting worked with F3 and BuroHappold on a range of specialist areas, including the Media Café, H-Club Members Suite, and the Sky Lounge Stratus East and West atriums, totalling more than 24,000sqm of floor area.

The Media Café acts as a hub for the press on matchdays, with screens visible at all angles. The multi-functional space includes a café that is also open to the public outside of matchdays, with a back section closed off through a bi-folding wall. The lighting in this space was a real focus to enable a seamless fluidity throughout each of the spaces when open together. JPR’s design team developed a unique housing that was fabricated around the club’s vision. A series of continuous swirl lights around 28-metres in length were designed with one-piece diffusers for a seamless finish. Organically flowing through the Media Café, these solutions bring fluidity to the adjoining environments. Zumtobel’s Vivo spotlights, finished in a custom blue colour to match the team colours, complement JPR’s bespoke fixtures.

The H-Club, a ‘discerning private members club thrust into the world of entertainment’, is steeped in the history of Tottenham Hostpurs’ founding years. JPR’s fully bespoke lighting solution featured around the circumference of the H-Club’s Luminaire Bar and lift lobby. The brass fronted step lantern echoes the luxurious details throughout the suite. Pre-fabricated into individual sections, the lighting installed onsite features more than 230-metres of diffused LED.

The Stratus East and West atrium lounges are modern, contemporary spaces where fans can enjoy stunning panoramic views across London from the highest vantage point available in the stadium, and a birds-eye view of the pitch during game days. For this area, a triangular ceiling design was presented to the JPR team, which was developed into an array of bespoke lightbox and acoustic solutions. The ceiling layout comprises more than 500 bespoke triangle boxes throughout the East and West wings of the Sky Lounge.

In its role as Lighting Partner for the new stadium, Zumtobel Group was heavily involved in the lighting, right down to the design process, as Elliot Evans, lighting designer at Zumtobel Group, explained: “For Tottenham, partnership was key, so we worked closely with BuroHappold, Populous and F3 Architects, and translated the specifications and ideas of the architects and lighting designers into a tangible lighting scheme.

“As a company, we have designed lighting schemes for a wide range of projects, including commercial and retail space, urban landscapes and leisure facilities, and this project allowed us to work from this expertise.”

Farhad Rahim, Associate Director of BuroHappold, added: “With the wide use of products from Zumtobel, acdc, Simes and Thorn, this gave a large palette of luminaires to address the lighting requirements without having to compromise.

“Zumtobel Group played a key part in assisting with the lighting designs, with advice on the choice of luminaires, technical details of the lighting, and assisting with mock-ups on site for client approval.”

More than 77,000 luminaires from Zumtobel Group and its various lighting brands have been installed throughout the stadium, and Evans revealed that Tottenham Hotspur’s hierarchy even played a role in which products were selected: “Each of our clients work in different ways, with some wanting to get more involved than others. However, working on such a high profile, high budget project, we would have expected the hierarchy, including Chairman Daniel Levy, to be involved, and we welcomed the input.”

As the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is the only venue in the English Premier League that is situated on a high street, with a direct presence in the local community - the stadium is actually part of a wider regeneration project for the area - it was vital that it have a striking visual presence. Lighting played a major factor in this, as from the outset of the project, designers hoped to use light to create an instantly recognisable stadium that would be seen by millions around the world while delivering the ultimate matchday and visitor experience.

Key to this is its impressive ‘halo’ of light. Created using 380 pieces of acdc’s Blade RGB linear luminaires, the halo creates an iconic scene of light visible from a birds eye view, while enhancing the guest experience for those inside the stadium. With their beam angle control and minimalistic design, acdc’s Blade fixtures blend seamlessly into the architecture of the stadium.

Alongside the stadium-topping halo of light, the Blade fixtures are used across the façade of the building, setting the scene for approaching fans and guiding them towards the stadium. However, due to the built-up nature of the stadium’s surroundings, care and consideration had to be given to the local community, ensuring that the façade lighting didn’t spill out into the night. As such, acdc worked closely with the architects and consultants, creating several mock-ups and undergoing a number of intensive tests, before developing a custom louvre for the fixtures, ensuring the right level of glare control.

“We wanted a building that was transparent, that was welcoming, and the veil that wraps the building, with its blue lighting, was about responding to different conditions to create a dynamic building with dynamic architecture,” Lee added.

Alongside the impressive façade lighting, on the ground, the external lighting scheme was orientated around the use of bespoke lighting columns incorporated with multiple spotlights that provide large areas of coverage from a single column, which together with the incorporation of other components - such as CCTV, WiFi and Audio - assists in reducing clutter and cutting down the number of columns for both lighting and other services in the external public areas.

Mesh Lighting specified these columns, manufactured by Technilum, to ringfence the whole of the outside of the stadium, as well as the approach. Ranging in height from four to 20 metres, the poles were specified from the Structure K range, and are paired with projectors courtesy of Simes and acdc.

One of the main challenges that comes when creating a new sporting venue, particularly one with a ‘bowl’ structure such as this, is that, in doing so, it loses some of the charm and character of the team’s former home, instead becoming just another ‘identikit’ stadium.

“This is something that Tottenham was aware of and focused on from the beginning,” said Evans. “In fact, everywhere you look in the new stadium there is a nod to the history of the club.

“White Hart Lane was always known for its fantastic atmosphere and Tottenham has worked tirelessly to find ways to recreate this feeling in the new scheme. 

“The whole lighting scheme has been designed to enhance the matchday experience for the supporters, for example, over 360 RGB floodlights have been used to light the underside of the roof, alongside the more than 600 linear RGB luminaires that create the instantly recognisable façade and halo effect, creating the new face of White Hart Lane.”

Indeed the new venue features a number of nods to Spurs’ former home, with some of the original brickwork and flooring taken from the old White Hart Lane and installed in the new stadium. The concourses are also filled with links to the club’s heritage, giving the ground its own sense of character.

“I think one of the important things from an architectural perspective was that we wanted to produce a building that, while upgrading the quality, didn’t lose the authenticity of what football stadiums are all about,” Lee said.

“It’s easy when you upgrade quality to make it too posh or too slick, so we wanted to produce an environment and use materials that were real and genuine, that would wear and that would look better in ten years time.

“As a sports architect, the challenge to design an amazing soccer stadium that’s genuine and authentic, that has a seating bowl that’s incredibly atmospheric, this is what it’s all about. We wanted to create a seating bowl that had identity, that had character, that wasn’t a symmetrical, ubiquitous stadium where you didn’t know where you were.”

Since the stadium’s official opening - a 2-0 victory for Tottenham Hotspur over Crystal Palace - it has gained plaudits from sports fans and architecture aficionados the world over. And for Evans, himself a Spurs fan, it was a special moment to see it finally open.

“It was an honour to be involved in the stadium, as it’s such an iconic project and it has a real history with a community feel - they have built something that people can be proud of for decades.

“The whole team is proud of the collaboration and what we have achieved, and on a personal level, as a long-time Tottenham fan, this has been a dream for me, and I have enjoyed seeing the project develop and the stadium finally open.

“It’s a fantastic scheme that uses the very latest lighting technology, is sustainable and future-proofed for any changes - it brings the club into a different league.”

www.burohappold.com

www.zumtobelgroup.com

www.populous.com

www.f3architects.co.uk

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by dbell

Nurol Life, Turkey

Turkish lighting design studio ZKLD has created a minimalist, elegant lighting scheme to complement the new Nurol Life tower complex, comfortably placing it within the wider Istanbul skyline.

Located in the heart of Istanbul, Turkey, Nurol Life is a new complex housing 501 residences and 50 offices. Completed in 2018, the building stands at 220 metres high, and is nestled in between the city centre and the Belgrad Forest.

Due to its proximity to the luxurious elements, coupled with its sleek look and minimalist design approach, Nurol Life is centred on the concept of ‘Practical Luxury’, with the aim to make life feel easier for its occupants.

Designed by Hakan Kiran Architecture, with interior design from Autoban, the lighting design for the complex was created by ZKLD Light Design Studio. The main idea for the lighting design was to complement the ‘Practical Luxury’ concept, creating a cosy and pleasant ambiance that makes people feel welcome on a human scale, while adding to its eye-catching architectural design, highlighting its iconic look on wider the city scale.

Because of the tower’s height and location, the façade was integral to ZKLD’s lighting design right from the start, as Mustafa Akkaya, lighting designer at the firm, explained: “At the beginning of the project, a mutual exchange of ideas was made with the client and the architectural team.

“During the next phases, we put forward possibilities of light that could emphasise the structure, and new ideas came in from there. The collaboration of ideas put a great emphasis on the lighting scheme during the whole process.”

The façade lighting for Nurol Life was broken down into three separate parts: the first, the base of the tower, related to the common areas and offices on the lower floors, and how the building is perceived from street level. The second part relates to the residential properties in the main body of the tower, while the final part relates to the ‘Pyramid Lounge’, situated at the building’s peak, and the pyramid form that can easily be perceived in the wider city scale.

At the base of the building, the lighting designed by ZKLD illuminates the entrances with mid-power uplights in a move to try and keep the building looking “calm and elegant”. 

To accentuate the silhouette of the building, while retaining a minimalist appearance, the main body of the tower is lit from the corners. This illumination was achieved through the use of very narrow, 5-degree Philips Color Kinetics LED projectors at 3000K that were placed at the bottom corners of the tower. 

The other application for façade illumination created by ZKLD was to highlight the surfaces of the balcony sidewalls with Assan line Power Plus graze lighting fixtures recessed on the floor of the balconies. 

“It was a great challenge to graze the surfaces homogenously whilst preventing light spill going through the windows of other residences,” said Akkaya. “Several mock-ups, where we played with the lenses of 3000K linear power LED fixtures, had to be done to obtain the desired result.”

The graze lighting on the façade helps to showcase the stone cladding materials; with the graze lighting effect, the texture of the stone is highlighted, helping to break the monotonous look of the tower.

The tower-topping Pyramid Lounge is the most attractive part of the project, not just for the building inhabitants, but also in highlighting the building amongst the city’s skyline - and it is particularly notable for its geometric shape. To highlight this geometry, and give the building an iconic status within the city, lines of light, underline the shape of the pyramid. However, while these light lines give a message to the wider city, it was important for the reflected lights and visible fixtures not to disturb inhabitants who spend time inside the pyramid. 

To make this a reality, a special profile was designed between two glass panels to conceal linear lighting fixtures. With the Philips Colour Kinetics RGBW, pixel-controlled LED fixtures, the designers are able to create special lighting scenarios for special events and national holidays, while retaining a sleek, minimalist look throughout the majority of the year.

This minimalist approach is something that was very important to ZKLD, as Akkaya explained: “Light is an instrument that brings a dramatic effect to a space, but it has to fit with the natural aesthetic of the building.

“We aimed to keep this drama elegant and minimal, by illuminating the building modestly from the inner side balconies, and the iconic geometric shape on the roof.”

Alongside the façade illumination, ZKLD created a lighting scheme for the surrounding landscape, extending the simple, relaxed aesthetic, while adding to the cosy atmosphere that the designers wished to create for residents.

This landscape lighting is blended with the tower, and constitutes the front of the building, a courtyard in the middle of the office space, a pool terrace and the rooftop. For each of these areas, a colour temperature of 3000K was chosen to complement the façade lighting, while creating a series of cosy and serene ambiances.

As part of this landscape lighting scheme, Heper Vesta S and Norma luminaires were used to highlight the road and pedestrian paths, while Faro Shadow LEDs created effect lighting on the grass.

For the main entrance of the building, the aim of the lighting design was to create a highlighted entrance, without any distortion on the visual perception of the interior. Keeping illuminance below eye level was the essential idea of this area’s lighting concept; therefore short bollards with double-sided light distribution were used.

The courtyard, with its small water feature at the centre, is an important breathing space not only for office employees, but the inhabitants as a whole, due to its location. To create a ground-level illuminance, so as not to disturb the office employees while they are working, floorwashers and spike spotlights were chosen to create the desired level of ambiance.

Another spectacular part of this project is the pool terrace: in this area, repetitive linear forms within the architecture served as a starting point for the lighting concept, while Vibia’s Meridiano Series creates warm, cosy and light-shadow effects on the surfaces, as Akkaya explained: “The rhythmic light beams are constituted to create a dramatic atmosphere. The wall sconces that have 360-degree linear light effects are also used to boost light and shadow, underlining the linear form of the architecture.”

At the rooftop, as with the rest of the project, cosiness and simplicity were the main factors in the lighting concept. The use of both up and downlighting fixtures with different light distributions were used for the pathway lighting; as the wider beam helps to illuminate the canopy, narrow beam fixtures help to create a dramatic atmosphere with rhythmically lit pillars to guide people through the pathway.L&L Luce&Light’s Step 6.2 floor-recessed luminaires were used to create this rhythmic effect across the terrace level.

Apart from these up and downlighting fixtures, all luminaires are kept below eye-level: illumination in other parts of the rooftop includes one-sided floorwashers at the side of the walkways, while a diffuse light emanates from the vegetation lighting. Special bollards, again fitted with 360-degree light effects, are used to continue the light and shadow motif present in the pool terrace, therefore keeping the whole lighting design integrated within the architectural language of the landscape.

Such integration was essential for placing Nurol Life into the fabric of the city as a whole - a key facet of the initial concept. “Lighting elements were mainly chosen in accordance with the conceptual idea,” Akkaya said. “Nurol Life is a structure in the centre of a metropolitan city, therefore we needed to keep in mind that it will be affected by its surroundings all the time. 

“For this reason, we were very careful with the surrounding buildings and as such we differentiated lighting levels according to the needs of each space. On the different layers of the building, such as the balconies, indirect lights were chosen to avoid visual discomfort during the design development process.”

Akkaya added that ZKLD’s close relationship with the architects, developed from previous projects, helped to make the whole process as streamlined as possible.

“In every project, the essential point is the conceptual idea: there are different ideas inspired by each project, its people and its surroundings. For Nurol Life, we aimed to enhance the architectural details by using the power of light. 

“Lighting design played an important role in reflecting the ideas of the project, and seeing this minimalist and elegant touch in the silhouette of Istanbul is a great feeling. Alongside this, Nurol Life has a unique place as its own reflection in the heart of the city.”

www.zkldstudio.com

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by dbell

Lego House, Denmark

The Lego House has become an iconic landmark, not just for the city of Billund but for Denmark as a whole. We sat down with Jesper Kongshaug, lighting designer for the project, to discuss the way that lighting helps to showcase the exhibits inside.

As children, we all played with Lego, building houses, towers, and all manner of imaginative architectural creations with the colourful bricks. The Lego House in Billund, Denmark, designed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) Architects, sees this childlike imagination brought to life.

With an architectural concept that is the manifestation of Lego itself, founded in Billund by Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1932, the Lego House consists of 21 ‘bricks’ stacked together to form an irregular pyramid. The façade of the building has been designed to look as though each of the 21 ‘bricks’ has itself been constructed out of Lego.

A special brick, entitled the ‘Keystone’, tops the structure. Designed to match the dimensions of a traditional 2x4 Lego piece, the Keystone features eight skylights, intended to correspond to the buds seen on such a block.

Built around a 2,000sqm, publicly accessible space called Lego Square, the Lego House features a number of outdoor roof terraces and two separate outdoor amphitheatres, with seating generated from the gradual sloped pixelation of two of the building’s main ‘bricks’. Intended to be a city space, open to both visitors and the general public, Lego Square has no visible pillars, while daylight and the sun’s rays pass through cracks and gaps between each structure, filling it with light.

Inside, the building houses three restaurants, a Lego store and an auditorium on the ground floor. The heart of the centre though comes in the Experience Zones, which host four brightly coloured play areas, alongside a large gallery of Lego models, and a special exhibition showcasing the legendary toy brand’s development history, including 500 of the most iconic Lego boxes produced.

The ‘Keystone’ houses the Masterpiece Gallery - a bridge between all corners of the exhibition, it also serves as a sky-lit gallery for Lego as an art form.

Copenhagen-based Jesper Kongshaug Lighting Design developed the lighting for this remarkable structure, working alongside BIG, as well as Lego’s own design team, to create a precise, yet subtle lighting scheme.

“I tried to find a balance between lighting quality and lighting precision,” said Kongshaug. “But it should not be a building where you think about the lighting. You should have a really high quality experience without knowing or thinking about how much effort was put into it.”

Although the lighting is intended to appear effortless throughout, a lot of technical preparation went into creating the right ambience for each exhibition.

“Each room has its own layout and setup, and everything is thought out precisely to fit that particular quality of that particular room,” Kongshaug explained.

“If you look at it as a normal guest, you perhaps don’t realise that everything has been customised for that particular role, but it was necessary because we have some quite strong differences in each room’s characteristics.”

A key part of this differentiated lighting came in the adjusted colour temperatures. Although white light was used throughout, it was shifted slightly from 3000K in the activity and exhibition spaces, and 4000K in the navigation routes.

By lowering the colour temperature slightly for the exhibition spaces, it means that the bright colours of the Lego bricks are properly reproduced. Kongshaug also worked to consciously avoid glare, and to get the right balance of shadows depending on each space’s function.

“When there are activities with bricks, we have made sure that there is a soft shadow,” he said. “We achieve this by adjusting at least three spots indirectly down towards the tables without dazzling. Where the visitors stand or walk, we have created a very vertical light, which also does not dazzle, but it increases accessibility and security.”

Another important factor for Kongshaug to consider was how to illuminate the various interactive areas situated throughout the Lego House. These areas use video projections and scanning cameras, and as such the wrong kind of lighting would have caused interference, blurring the video projections and preventing the scanners from recognising Lego figures, as intended.

“We had to make sure that there was a very good transition between the exhibition spaces and these media-based areas where the cameras and digital projectors take over,” Kongshaug said. “To counteract waste light and glare, we used black honeycomb grids within the luminaires.”

To create this precise lighting, Kongshaug called on his previous experience working in theatre lighting. “Precision is crucial in a theatrical space, and that was the case here too, as it was crucial to precisely direct the light.”

Although Kongshaug had to be very precise when directing the lighting throughout the Lego House, this task was made much more difficult by the fact that none of the exhibitions were in place when the lighting was being installed. “All the lighting was put up and focused and pointed in completely empty rooms,” he said. “It was quite an awkward situation, but we could not come in with the lifts and ladders and everything after all the exhibits had been put in place.” As such, Kongshaug and his team spent several weeks calculating and placing the luminaires according to drawings of the exhibitions.

“I could tell that the lighting was coming out successfully even when there was no exhibition installed yet, because I could put my hand in the space where I knew the experiences would be and see that it was all working out fine.” 

While the majority of the Lego House features relatively uniform lighting, if alternating slightly in colour temperature, there were a few areas that needed a more dynamic lighting scheme. The World Explorer exhibit, for instance, features lighting that changes throughout the day from morning, to daytime to night. “We linked this to all kinds of things, lighting in the houses and trains, in the models and so on, and we had to get the lighting to change in the same rhythm,” Kongshaug said.

The building uses a DALI 2.0 control system, and Kongshaug said that using this, rather than the preferred DMX system, offered up an interesting new challenge. “We wanted to challenge the manufacturers to give us a spot that would do a precise colour programming with precise timing that wasn’t done by DMX,” he said. This control system was also utilised to illuminate the Tree of Creativity, a 50-foot structure that stands in the middle of the building, and is illuminated with a number of small RGBW LED spots.

“We had some challenges to make the DALI control work in a good an effortless way, but after a few adjustments we were able to develop a very strong tool. Normally we would have used DMX but it was a great advantage that we could use the same protocol that is used in the rest of the building.”

Kongshaug predominately opted for Targetti spots throughout the Lego House, after being put in touch with the Italian manufacturers through a local distributor.

Recessed fixtures from Targetti’s CCTLED Architectural range, alongside Ledo projectors equipped with different optical systems and beam openings meet the various requirements that Kongshaug had for the lighting, as they were used to control the play of light, shade and colour. The spots were given a special finish, requested by Lego, in order to blend into the ceiling. Elsewhere, Kongshaug also made use of spots from Erco and LTS.

Because of the building’s staggered brick structure, and the installation of skylights in several of the exhibition rooms, the space is filled with natural daylight. The recurring use of white walls throughout add to a visually serene background, so as not to draw attention away from the vibrant colours of the Lego models on display. Daylight and shadow calculations were also made, with filters installed on some windows to control the amount of light that enters, so that it does not conflict with the exhibitions inside.

Since completing work on the Lego House, Kongshaug has gone on to work on the new Olympic Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland - a project that he won the competition for halfway through his involvement with the Lego House. 

And he said that the experience of working on such a high-profile project has only helped him.

“It definitely was a learning process to be involved with a big international organisation,” he said. “I won the competition for the new headquarters partly because I had learned how to work on high scale projects like that, and I’ve used a lot of the things that I learned during the Lego House.”

Kongshaug added that it was a particularly exciting opportunity to work on such a project in his home country. “Being from a small country, you don’t get that many projects domestically, I normally have to go abroad, so it was good to get it.”

Throughout the Lego House, the lighting is blended seamlessly into the fabric of the building, complementing the striking architecture perfectly. In keeping with Kongshaug’s initial aim for the building to be a space where you don’t think about the lighting, he said that such a level of integration is “a fantastic reward when you think about it”, and he is delighted with how it has turned out.

“It was a complex solution in a complex building, where the lighting is quite low profile. BIG has been very happy with the lighting, and I would say that I’m very pleased.

“It’s something that I can look back on and think that we pulled this one off.”

www.jesperkongshaug.com

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by dbell