058 FOCUS
Right The Akira Back restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental, London
Invisible lighting
The recently opened Mandarin Oriental in London’s Mayfair exemplifies the current trend for customised, sculptural luminaires and installations
THE EMPHASIS on lit effect rather than the luminaires themselves, long advocated by lighting designers, has become widely adopted. Te upshot is that much architectural lighting is now artfully concealed in floor troughs, suspended ceiling panels, coves and cornices, especially in leisure and retail environments. Te irony is that when the approach goes overboard potentially it can be to the detriment of the overall lit effect. ‘Tere has been a trend to eliminate visible lighting, to the point where we are sometimes fighting to introduce accent lighting – which is essential if the overall effect isn’t to appear too flat, which it does if you only have concealed lighting,’ says Nicholas Belfield, partner of DPA Lighting Consultants.
As ever in lighting, the optimum results come from layering and balance.
Another outcome to emerge from this trend, particularly in hotel environments, is the overt use of lighting in the form of customised and sculptural light fittings and installations, which act as dramatic focal points, foils to blandness. Occasionally the two techniques, overt and concealed lighting, come together with the sources integrated into these structures.
Te approach also involves commissioned sculptures and interior elements that are artfully lit so that structure and illumination combine to create the centrepiece. Just as the chandelier has always glittered in these environments, these are creations to arrest the eye and drop the jaw – or at least signal the exclusivity of the surroundings. ‘Special lighting features are definitely more prevalent across all types of projects, with hotels being at the forefront of this trend,’ says Belfield.
‘Tere are multiple reasons for this – for one, lighting becoming more concealed and the move away from visible architectural lighting, including the desire from many designers to avoid downlights and all visible forms of technical architectural lighting. Technological developments, the reduction in size of LEDs, tuneable white technology and a more sophisticated understanding of lighting by architects and interior designers have also all driven this.’ Te latest addition to the Mandarin Oriental portfolio in London’s Mayfair features a series of illuminated features, large and small, throughout the hotel as part of a lighting scheme by DPA Lighting Consultants working with Tokyo-based mutlidisciplinary studio Curiosity.
Designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and situated on Hanover Square (Mayfair’s oldest), the boutique spa hotel is built using a Vierendeel structure to maximise internal space. Te allows for spacious guestrooms and suites, and a dramatically sunken yet daylit restaurant – one of two restaurants by award- winning chef American Korean Akira Back, his first in the UK – beneath the ground floor lobby.
With their aim of creating ‘a hub of nature and art’, Curiosity – whose work has always shown a strong lighting sensibility – collaborated with DPA to ensure that even if lighting features had been created or selected on an aesthetic basis, the technical spec was rigorous and fittings produced the optimum lit effect.
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