This office development located opposite London Blackfriar’s Station is now the London headquarters of Mellon Bank. dpa lighting consultants worked closely with SOM Architects on the shell and core areas of the base-build project. The scope of work included the double reception area on the ground floor (with access from both Playhouse Yard and Queen Victoria Street), the lift lobbies, two central atrium spaces and the external façade lighting.

One of the challenges of the project was to successfully illuminate the walls of the reception area, which were clad with polished woven stainless steel cladding. The resultant lit effect creates an array of highly specular reflections that appear to follow the visitor through the space.

The red travertine-clad central lift lobby has an etched low-iron glass floor supported on clear laminated glass beams. In this area, our solution was to wallwash the walls from below utilising inground uplights and from above using ceiling recessed washlights, which in turn softly backlights the etched glass deck when viewed from above or below.