dbell

The Grand Connaught Rooms, UK

The Grand Hall at the Grand Connaught Hotel in London received an enlightening makeover recently with the help of Tyson Lighting Design. The grade II listed building has been expanded and renovated over many years, with the earliest part dating back to 1774 as part of the original Freemasons' Tavern. The building was then remodeled into the now known Connaught Rooms between 1905-10, creating a suite of dining, meeting and entertainment rooms.

The De Vere-run occasion rooms play host for many prestigious events throughout the year, such as high-end fashion shows, including London Fashion Week's ‘Fashions Finest’, which will be making a second appearance later this year. However, the venue owners have been restricted with fixed, outdated spotlights that limit the potential the grand space could exploit.

The pre-existing lighting installations were comprised of a central run of large crystal chandeliers and reflecting crystal wall lights. Within the high level vaulted ceiling were a number of disused and unmaintained spotlights. These were not successful nor did they create the impact the space required or deserved.

The brief for the client was to create an upgraded version of the already existing spotlights and uplights. However, due to the listing rank of the building, designers and manufacturers were restricted with flexibility of positioning locations and power source points. Another factor they had to consider during the evaluation process was the concealment of fixtures around the key architectural areas. In addition, the client also wanted to be able to change the colours and atmosphere of the space, all in order to broaden their clientele and create an element of competition with other local venues.

The Principal Haley Company brought in Tyson Lighting to the design process, which then provided NJO lighting elements to the project.

Due to the architectural sensitivity of the building, the initial steps made towards the refurbishment included a full site survey, which was then examined and approved by English Heritage and the conservation architect. Detailed lighting layouts and concept visuals were all submitted as part of the application and review process.

In order to accomplish the vibrant and pastel colour schemes, RGBWA luminaires were brought into the scheme. Linear runs off medium beam profiles were positioned in an existing trough space to illuminate the ornate barrel vault ceiling. The second layer down was to highlight the ornate detailing to the high level columns. This was achieved using miniature RGBW uplighters, which were surface mounted to the plinth detail. A bespoke wall luminaire was designed to provide both white and coloured light, and direct and indirect light onto the columns, thus bringing lower level coloured wash lighting down into the space.

The lighting control system created by DMX is run via a Pharos web-based controller, which allows the operator to control the system via a tablet. Flexibility was a key element for the client, so the scheme was designed in a zoned system, giving full control of the space.

NJO supplied the project with LDP Series (30w/m) 4-Colour high power RGBW LED luminaires and FXM67 Ø67mm compact LED spotlights. The LDP Series was appropriately chosen for its uplighting and wall washing, wide colour range, parallel wiring for ease of installation, low running costs, long life and low maintenance, custom lengths to suit individual schemes and IP65 rating for external use. Energy efficiency is a key trend in current and future lighting projects and with increasing developments in LED technology, this is becoming more affordable and readily available for large scale projects. The Ø67mm compact LED spotlights are ideal for highlighting architectural details, with a wide range of ultrabright LED colours, they are robust and corrosion resistant, with high output and low profile, cool to touch, low power and high efficiency, long life (typically 30,000 hours), high reliability and low maintenance.

The Tyson lighting wall fixtures are made with bronze plated steel in a classic Art Deco inspired design. With LED strip lighting and NJO spotlights hidden behind the steel encasing and opal perspex central strip, the wall lights add an element of sophistication and tradition while being modern and energy efficient. They are used along the length of the room, fixed to the column uprights, to reiterate the linear theme and symmetrical consistency throughout the Hall.

London is a time machine of historical architectural buildings. What Tyson Lighting and NJO have brought to this iconic building is a splash of vibrancy and Modernism, whilst maintaining respect for the architectural features within the room. It is vital to be able to light a room without the fixtures becoming intrusive or detract from the overall architecture.

The fittings should not be visible unless they are present for decorative purposes, which Tyson Lighting have achieved in this project.

www.tysonlighting.com

by dbell

Watergate Hotel, USA

When the notorious Watergate Hotel underwent a much-needed facelift, the owners turned to Ron Arad Architecture, BBGM and CM Kling + Associates Architectural Lighting Design to carry out the renovations, transforming the establishment into a loving homage to its original 1960s design.

The Watergate Hotel, best known for the infamous ‘Watergate Scandal’ that led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon in 1974, has undergone a major architectural refit.

Originally designed by Italian architect Luigi Moretti between 1960-65, the Watergate Hotel is a major component in a mixed-use, self-contained complex that includes apartment buildings, offices, extensive commercial facilities, and the hotel itself. The building is the only example of Moretti’s work in the US and is listed as a national monument.

The refurbishment, carried out by London-based Ron Arad Architects and BBGM, with CM Kling + Associates Architectural Lighting Design, pays tribute to Moretti’s design, with its curvilinear forms and clean, modernist palette of white plaster and marble, capturing the aesthetic of the era in which the establishment gained its notoriety.

The refit was carried out across the hotel’s ground and below-ground floors, encompassing the entrance foyer and hotel lobby, library, restaurant, bar, dining terrace and main elevator lobby. A breath-taking reimagining of the whisky bar takes centre stage, with the introduction of a new floor-to-ceiling curved wall made up of 2,450 whisky bottles. The whisky wall’s frame incorporates individual Vissa uplights from Linea Light Group underneath each bottle, casting the bar in a rich, amber light.

This – according to David Ghatan, CM Kling President – made the whisky bar a ‘once in a lifetime design’, describing it as a ‘chandelier for the entire lobby’. Ghatan said: “The whisky wall glows, casting warm light into both the bar and the lobby – it’s a stunning feature on its own. But the most intriguing part about the wall is the subtle glimpses of the people and objects on the other side.”

Repeating motifs are expressed continuously throughout the remodelling, through the use of curved, tubular bronze-patinated brass, polished copper and stainless steel, accompanied by sweeping oak-lined walls, while the rich palette of metal and timber fashions and re-arranges the route through the building, opening up a fluid sequence of spaces, while the lighting illuminates the way.

Custom-designed rugs and richly upholstered furniture adorn the lobby area, while black granite floors and plastered ceilings are articulated in a playful pattern of polished curves, helping to perpetuate reflections of the key design elements. Across the lobby, which features twisted bronze cords in both high-polish and matte finishes, the vertical surfaces are lit, casting the space in a warm glow and accentuating the patination of the brass.

Meanwhile, the hotel’s new Kingbird Restaurant is an open, two-storey dining room with soaring stainless steel columns and spring-like, coiled pendants that appear to float against the polished black Venetian plaster ceiling. These spring-inspired chandeliers later became the hotel’s new logo.

Architect for the renovation, Ron Arad, commented that one of the main draws to take the extensive renovation project was the scandal that gave the Watergate its lasting reputation. He said: “I have a confession to make: our initial attraction to this project was actually the Watergate scandal, and it is absolutely fantastic that this starting point led us to work on a project that also has such a great architectural legacy.”

Arad continued that, from a design perspective, his main ambition was to enhance the original designs of Moretti, while adding his own creative flair. “Working within such a significant period piece, you can’t ignore the context, but at the same time you don’t want to mimic it,” he said. “Instead you want to create something complementary, but importantly, something new.

“We have tried to enhance Moretti’s original curves using our own, while at the same time influencing the anticipated flow of people through the spaces.”

This focus on paying homage to Moretti’s original design, while striving for something new has resulted in the creation of a Mad Men-esque tribute to '60s Modernism, to the point that you would expect the stunning new-look whisky bar to be full of Don Draper types, puffing on cigarettes and sipping on glasses of top-end scotch as they discuss their latest ad campaigns. In fact, the hotel uniforms were even designed by the show’s costume designer.

Following a recommendation from the local architect and an interview with the owner, CM Kling + Associates came on board with a brief to ‘provide a world-class luxury hotel’ with a pre-assembled, international design team, as Ghatan explained: “The team of artists, architects and interior designers was spread across the globe. It required interpretation of various design styles.

“The Lighting Design team worked on all areas of the hotel, whereas the interiors groups were broken up into specific areas. The LD therefore needed to ensure that the designs worked together.”

This allowed CM Kling to fine-tune any plans and make sure they were in keeping with both Ron Arad’s and Luigi Moretti’s design. A key consideration of which was to ensure that light, colour, movement and shimmer could be introduced, while keeping glare to a minimum. This was particularly important because reflective materials were key to the design throughout the hotel’s public spaces and created depth, shape and reflections to change the feel and move light into the space. Any glare in this high-traffic area would be distracting for both hotel guests and staff.

The design team built several extensive mock-ups to address challenges with the lighting and the materials. Ghatan continued: “The lighting was critical to feature these materials and shapes without glare and hotspots. We hid many light sources in ceiling coves, wall coves and other building elements, and down lights were chosen, which produced little to no glare.”

The building itself presented a number of challenges. The Watergate is a registered historical landmark, and design is constrained by historical renovation regulations so the exterior of the building couldn’t be touched. Inside the building, low ceilings – standing at just nine feet – proved another challenge. Ghatan said: “The low ceilings meant that we couldn’t specify traditional showpiece chandeliers, so we created a custom vertical chandelier – the whisky wall – which ties together the lobby and the bar. We visually heightened the space by emphasising reflective gradients on the floors and ceilings with light from coves.”

According to Ghatan, the collaboration between CM Kling and Ron Arad provided a unique experience for the lighting designers in his firm. Both the project and the client benefitted from the energy and willingness to collaborate among the entire design and construction team.

“The mock-ups and collaboration with the architect, Ron Arad, and the Italian manufacturer of the metal elements was an incredible experience for us. Collaboration is the most important aspect of our design business, and we were thrilled to manage such an extensive, detailed undertaking, with three contributors in three different countries,” he said.

And Ghatan believes the renovation captured the essence of the Watergate spirit. “Our lighting design and collaboration with Ron Arad and his team’s vision has created a space that flows, contrasts and offers nooks for all the hotel’s secrets and rumours. The lighting design creates a visual balance and continuity throughout the entire hotel.”

www.cmkling.com

by dbell

BXR London, UK

When he’s not winning title fights in the ring, IBF and newly crowned WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has been striving to make a name for himself as a businessman too. This reputation has been boosted recently with the opening of BXR, London’s first high-end, boutique boxing gym. This facility, backed by Joshua, is the first fitness facility of its kind to operate a members-only gym, as well as a pay-to-train boutique fitness concept.

Designed by Marie & Albin interior designers and Studio Webb architects, the facility covers the ground and lower ground floor of a residential development on Chiltern Street in Marylebone, London. The project includes state of the art gym equipment on the ground floor, along with three studio spaces, a juice bar, saunas and changing facilities on the lower ground floor. But the site’s centrepiece is no doubt its full-size boxing ring, which adds a rawness and authenticity to the venue.

The lighting design for this space was carried out by DHA Designs and led by Peter Fordham, partner and director at the London-based design firm, from its conception right through to completion in January of this year, just months before Joshua’s epic heavyweight title bout with Wladimir Klitscho at Wembley Stadium in April.

DHA Designs was first introduced to the client, BXR Limited, back in April 2016, through interior designer Marie Soliman. The gym was always intended to be a ‘fast-track’ project, and for the client, it was their first experience of working with a lighting designer, as Fordham explained: “When we first met, it was clear that the client had not worked with a lighting designer before.

“So we needed to start from first principles and explain why they should consider a lighting designer in the first place. And explain that we don't supply any light fixtures!”

The initial brief for DHA Designs was to design the architectural lighting for all of the public spaces at BXR London, together with some ‘show’ lighting for the boxing ring area and ‘Zen-like’ lighting for the three studio spaces.

“The show lighting included a couple of moving head fixtures and RGB floods,” Fordham explained. “The moving heads didn’t make it through VE, but we held onto the RGB floods each side of the ring. We also included a facility for plugging in a lighting desk at a DJ station for controlling colour change, plus a couple of extra positions on the pre-wired lighting bars for hired moving-head fixtures, again controlled by DMX from the DJ desk.

“As for the Zen-like studio lighting, this part of the brief went through many, many changes, mainly due to the final choice of gym equipment that was being purchased for each studio space.”

However, by the time that fit-out and electrical contractors, WFC Contractors and HMS Electrical respectively, had been brought in, budgets for the project were starting to be tightened and the lighting design, like everything else, needed some fine-tuning in order to bring it in line with the available cost plan.

Apart from the ever-evolving brief and VE exercises, DHA Designs did experience some difficulties during the construction phase, particularly between the client and the building’s landlord that needed to be overcome. Fordham continued: “BXR London is located in the basement of a high-end residential development in London, and the apartments were fully occupied during the construction. So the contractor needed to be extra careful not to inconvenience tenants.

“Also, there were some issues with obtaining the landlord’s permission to penetrate through existing external walls to provide power for external lighting. Unfortunately these elements of the lighting design had to be dropped due to these difficulties.”

The tight time frame set out from the beginning also played an important role in DHA Designs’ sourcing of lighting manufacturers for the project, as Fordham elaborated: “We selected a group of key manufacturers to work with, who could meet a demanding specification on a tight time scale.

“Factorylux was an obvious choice for its industrial style fixture detailing, which fitted in well with the chic New York/Fight Club spin on the BXR interiors.”

DHA Designs made use of Xicato LED modules in the Factorylux luminaires to ensure colour consistency and dimming stability, and instead of using a conventional lighting track, the lighting designers selected a combination of Factorylux’s new Track Pipe system (a pre-wired 20mm conduit with fixed DALI outlets) and internally wired lighting bars from Doughty to complete the industrial look in the ground floor boxing and gym areas. Elsewhere, a combination of Margo and 99 spotlights were used with 2700K Xicato LED modules to light the gym equipment and training areas.

“Over the boxing ring, we used Factorylux’s 500mm diameter aluminium spun pendants, supplied with concentric louvres, which I had first spotted in the Factorylux van in Shoreditch, London,” added Fordham.

EcoLED supplied the majority of the architectural lighting in the lower ground floor, as Fordham used a combination of its recessed ZEP6 LED downlights, along with the linear DecoLine 15s LED strips, all in 2700K. And Fordham was full of praise for the work done by EcoLED. “EcoLED really stepped up to the mark with competitive pricing, and was extremely flexible with fixture finishes and optics available in its downlight range,” he said. “Its linear LED profiles fitted into even the tightest of details, providing dot-free illumination for the stairs, changing rooms and studios.

“The architect described our lighting design as very ‘Tron’, which I took as a complement!”

DHA Designs turned to Architainment Lighting to provide the lighting control and dynamic lighting elements for the project. The lighting control is engineered around the Philips Dynalite solution, and each floor uses a custom-built control enclosure, made by Architainment.

A Philips Dynalite AntumbraDisplay user interface at the facility’s main reception has been designated as a master controller, and allows for full control of all lighting on site. Additional AntumbraDisplays are located in the three basement studios and each treatment room, enabling the lighting in each room to be independently adjusted as required.

Alongside this, the LCDs of all user interfaces are branded with the BXR logo, and are prevented from unauthorised use by a ‘lock out’ feature. Once unlocked, a series of icons are displayed, providing users with intuitive operation.

The exposed brick walls on either side of the boxing ring feature 20-ft murals of Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Sugar Ray Leonard, and to accentuate these works of art, each wall is illuminated by two Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast Powercore gen4 luminaires, fading between red and blue. These are programmed to come on in the evenings, as the gym closes to the public, and run a series of dynamic effects, which are visible outside through the six-metre-high, triple glass frontage on Chiltern Street.

An input panel for external DMX control has also been provided beside the boxing ring, and provides local control of the ColorBlast Powercore gen4 units for special events.

The system also takes advantage of any natural light that comes into the venue via the front glazing, using daylight harvesting to adjust the light levels in the gym accordingly.

As well as working closely alongside DHA Designs throughout the project, Architainment Technical Services commissioned the complete solution into operation, and provided training for the client, “and what a great job they did too,” said Fordham, “particularly during the commissioning and programming.”

Towards the end of the construction phase, once the lighting had been installed, it took a long time on site for the lighting to gel the spaces together, as Fordham explained: “The contractor completed the upper ground floor areas first of all, but by the time we had completed our first focus of the lighting, the client’s team had decided to rearrange the gym equipment, requiring a re-focus.

“During this stage, the basement space was a construction site. But in the last few days before the handover, the site began to settle down and we were able to set up the lighting to maximise the full potential of the interiors.”

A key highlight of which was, in Fordham’s eyes, getting the ColorKinetics RGB floods to light onto the side wall murals each side of the boxing ring. “That was quite a moment,” he said. “And the evening when the security film was removed from the external glazing was quite an event, allowing a brilliant view into the gym at night from the street.”

The end result is a brilliant facility that perfectly captures the urban industrial aesthetic that it set out to achieve. However, Fordham added that he is disappointed that the project had to lose some elements along the way. “I don’t think I would change anything in the boxing ring and gym area,” he said. “Although it would have been great to have kept a couple of moving head fixtures in the scheme on a permanent basis.

“It was also a shame to have lost the feature RGB lighting to the three studio spaces due to VE and issues with the landlord. Ironically, as soon as the training staff had been hired for BXR, the first thing they requested was additional coloured lighting in all of the studios. So much for the Zen lighting brief!”

The project still remains a knockout though, certainly befitting of World Heavyweight Champion Joshua. With many stand-out features throughout the site, including the combination of architectural lighting and Factorylux’s functional decorative fixtures, and the view from the street into the gym and boxing ring at night, Fordham concluded: “It was great to work with a new client in BXR Limited, especially since it was their first experience working with a lighting designer. This project was my first high-end boxing gym, but it hopefully won’t be the last.”

www.dhadesigns.com

by dbell