Harvey Nichols, Doha Festival City
This Qatari outpost of the famous Harvey Nichols Brand is located in a mall within Doha Festival City and is positioned over two large area floors. As with any high-end fashion department store the floors are split up not into distinct zones with their individual look and feel, but with consistency in lighting approach and light quantity.
Since the floor areas are generous the floor to ceiling heights are relatively high to retain good spatial proportions for the store. Typical ceiling heights were 4 metres or slightly more. At the time of the store design and construction, LED light sources were not sufficiently powerful or with consistent light quality to use within the ceiling ambient and display fixtures. Therefore we opted for compact metal halide reflector lamps, Philips Mastercolour, to give us the appropriate illuminance levels, brightness contrast ratios, and colour rendering quality necessary for such as project.
All lighting integrated into the display furniture or within interior design features was LED, and with this combination we were able to optimise energy efficiency for the lighting installation. Ceiling lighting was specified to be as discreet as possible either recessed into ceiling roughs or as very compact adjustable recessed and plaster-in downlights.
Flexibility was key to the project and this was why we opted for track and spot lighting as the main ambient and display lighting solution. We worked closely with the Interior Designers Studio Four IV to integrate all lighting as discreetly as possible and to achieve the best lit effect for all the details. Mock-ups and prototypes were carried out as necessary. Special attention was placed on the VM locations to provide added impact and visual interest with the use of suspended light features and ceiling details.
Our simple sustainability aims were to use only energy efficient light sources throughout that would provide the appropriate light levels and light quality for the store parameters. All light sources are LED and compact metal halide. The personal shopping area has some dimming facility but the main store areas are switched only, but in groups that can be selected for store open, store closed, through the night security.
Retail Designer: Studio Four IV