Chutney Mary, London, UK

 

Established in 1990, Chutney Mary pioneered the concept of contemporary Indian dining in London. Newly relocated to the heart of the West End, the refurbishment of 73 St James’s by MW Eat was a carefully orchestrated project that drew upon 25 years of experience, delivering quintessential Indian cuisine from fine dining to informal. The interior design by DESIGNWILKES brings together an exotic champagne and cocktail bar, glamorous restaurant, and two private dining rooms.

The brief was to provide the highest quality of light in a way that provided drama and contrast across a range of different materials and finishes. In addition, the qualities of ambience, warmth, and high quality smooth dimming to a very low level were paramount. To achieve all the necessary lighting characteristics, a combination of low voltage halogen and LED light sources were utilised in a variety of lighting layers and integrated lighting details. With the LED light sources, it was critical to use the best possible dimmable drivers to achieve the optimum low-end dimming for these sources. Decorative luminaires in the form of pendants and wall lights contributed to a strong interior aesthetic, and the overall visual quality was further enhanced with many candles which were used throughout the restaurant, to give a warm, romantic additional layer of low level ambient lighting.

All the lighting was controlled through a programmable dimming system with a variety of lighting scenes set up for different times of day and special events. One of the many challenges faced was balancing these scenes against the changing seasonal natural daylight, in particular for the front bar area. Much time was spent getting the best optimum balance of lighting to present the restaurant in the best possible light!

Owner: MW Eat – Namita Panjabi, Camellia Panjabi and Ranjit Mathrani
Interior Designer: Design Wilkes
Architect: Anthony Richardson & Partners

The Place, Tainan

The Place, Tainan is an interesting hotel in Downtown Tainan’s East District conceived by the Dutch Architects Mecanoo and Client Hotel Royal Group. It  reflects and connects with the local culture, city and landscape and is beautifully presented with a contemporary ‘Dutch twist’ on the design. The result is a vibrant and stunning guest experience from the Reception Lobby, Cafe and shop at Ground Level through to the upper levels of restaurants, bar, meeting and gallery spaces as well as the stunningly simple and stylish rooms.

Natural daylight was in abundance so lighting control was an important lighting component and provides the seamless transition from day to night in all areas.

The rooms are modest but appear spacious with lighting ‘floating’ various planes and volumes to provide visual interest and define the sleep, relax and work zones. The dark materials are also offset with lighting to add further drama to the spaces at night.

For the public areas , dpa worked closely with Mecanoo to develop an overall lighting approach with lighting concealed where volume and planes needed separating and softening as backdrops to very human spaces with decorative elements providing soft intimate focus or dramatic accent to objects and materials.

The result is an impressive working of materials , planes and volumes that connect and float with lighting playing an integral part to their harmony.

Client: Royal Management Consultant Co, Ltd
Operator: Hotel Royal Group
Architect and Interior Designer: Mecanoo

Four Seasons Hotel, Gresham Palace, Budapest – Kollázs Brasserie & Bar

The Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest is a historical landmark that combines the luxurious comforts of the 21st century with the elegance of the past, it is considered by many to be the best hotel in Hungary. The Hotel appointed dpa to design the lighting and work with EDG Design when they embarked upon the development and launch of their new restaurant.

The Kollázs Brasserie & Bar is a contemporary European brasserie in a vibrant location, overlooking the Chain Bridge and the Danube River. The decorative interior makes many historical references through beautiful details, sensitively selected artwork, furniture and materials. A mixed palette of concealed, integrated lighting, decorative luminaires and discreet downlighting sympathetically provides the elements to create a vibrant and welcoming restaurant. Along with the dining rooms, the restaurant features an elegant Patisserie, dramatic Rotisserie and striking Bar design, all of which are enhanced with carefully coordinated lighting.

The restaurant is in operation all day from early breakfast to late night cocktails. In response to this flexible use, the lighting changes through the day to best suit the service at any particular time with the bright and fresh daytime scenes to a more intimate dining experience in the evening. The Bar becomes the main attraction after dinner when the lighting provides focus to the bespoke furniture and sparkling glassware creating a cosy and relaxed place to enjoy a late drink.

 

 

 

Bentley Restaurant, Abu Dhabi, UAE

When visiting the Galleria Mall on Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi, no one would expect to find a cosy European bistro and bar with French-inspired cuisine between all the glamorous shopping outlets.

The Bentley Bistro & Bar identifies itself with a prominent sign at the entrance and the obscured glass front just leaves you with a suggestion of what awaits behind it. Through the double doors you enter an extended space with a heritage-driven interior scheme, designed by the Interior Designer and name giver Jon Bentley of Harrisons, Realising Creative Environments.

During the design development dpa worked closely together with the operator Food Fund and the interior designer to achieve a unique and remarkable interior. The lighting is visual, dominated by the various custom-selected decorative pendants, wall lights and table lamps. It still was of importance to provide sufficient functional lighting to the tables and bar area, without affecting the moody ambience of the bistro and by minimising the view of lighting equipment. At the slatted ceiling, suspended spotlights, hidden between the beams, provide focal glow to the tables underneath.

Concealed linear lighting complements the carefully selected materials at the low partitions and seating furniture where, at the raised level lounge, linear uplighting enhances the texture of the red brick wall.

Bentley’s opens its doors from the morning to the evening. The beautiful day lit terrace invites the guests to have a cup of coffee in the sunshine, while in the evening they can enjoy a delicious cocktail at the feature bar. Without disrespect to the cultural sensitivity to alcohol, discreet lighting has been integrated to the bottle display at the back bar to provide a focal point within the scheme. The lighting has been concealed within the display to highlight the bottle labels, when the louvers are open and to create a subtle glow, when louvers are closed.

Client, Operator and Project Manager: Food Fund International
Interior Designer: Harrison

Mint Leaf of London, Dubai, UAE

Recently, the Mint Leaf of London restaurant opened its doors in the heart of Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC), at the 15th floor of the Emirates Financial Towers, South Tower. With a fine selection of authentic Indian cuisine and panoramic views of the city, the restaurant promises a truly exceptional gastronomic experience.

During the entire design process, dpa worked closely with the Interior Designers LW Design. The rich and varied materials of the interior space reflect the high quality aspirations of the Client. The biggest challenge for the lighting was to design a scheme of minimal visibility that complements the interior and dark finishes without obscuring the stunning view of the city, but still providing sufficient lighting for the show kitchens and dining tables.

The intricate petals of the high ceiling have been emphasised with linear LED and within their recessed slots, spotlights have been concealed from direct view to keep the ceiling as clean as possible. Concealed lighting and a high number of discreet uplights have been installed throughout to highlight the beauty in the details. Hanging seating chairs have been accentuated by the use of miniature downlights. The evenly backlit bar counter and large graphic panels provide focal points and scale to the space. Carefully chosen decorative light fixtures give the interior ambience its individual touch.

The complete lighting scheme is dimmable and controlled through an automatic architectural lighting control system to suit different locations and timings.

Client: Mint Leaf of London
Interior Designer: LW Design Group
Photography: LW Design Group

Le Royal Meridien, Abu Dhabi, UAE

The combination of carefully integrated lighting equipment within the interior fabric and the use of decorative human scale lighting elements such as table lamps and floor standing lamps has resulted in a visually stimulating hotel interior. The balance between varying lighting techniques in terms of their detailing and the intensity of light being emitted from them was a pre-requisite in the early stages of the lighting design process.

The resultant effect is one of a harmonious lit environment in which the interior architecture is sympathetically expressed with artificial light.

Client: Abu Dhabi Royal Family
Operator: Le Royal Méridien
Project Manager: Tailored Business Solutions
Architect: LW Design Group
Interior Designer: LW Design Group
M&E Consultant: WME Consultants

 

Yuan Chinese Restaurant, Dubai, UAE

Yuan Restaurant is the latest dining destination at the world-renowned Atlantis Palm Jumeirah. The restaurant is contemporary Chinese with a traditional twist, offering modern food with time-honoured traditions. This philosophy is carried throughout the interior spaces to bring an exciting and elegant experience to Yuan’s guests.

dpa had the pleasure of being part of the design team to design the interior lighting to the front of house spaces.

The space is varied with multi-levels of materials, vistas and areas of focus. The lighting needed to be totally discreet and complement the space without being obvious, but at the same time provide the ambience, accent and functional lighting the restaurant required. The restaurant features different layers of surfaces, with a variety of defined materials and colour palettes . A main objective and briefing for dpa was to work with the least possible numbers of luminaires mounted in the ceiling, and to use concealed lighting where possible to add to the ambience without compromising the focus and interest of the space.

A key consideration when designing a project of this nature is the specification of an Architectural Lighting Control System. This enables programming and balancing of all lighting elements, not only according to the time of the day, but to the time of the season.
The lighting control system controls a number of luminaire groups balanced and programmed according to the time of day and night. There are a number of preset scenes for the daytime, lunch time dining, early and late night.

Client: Kerzner
Operator: Atlantis The Palm Limited
Architect: Noor
Interior Designer: Steve Leung Designers
M&E Consultant : Crown House Technology UAE LLC

 

Elements Restaurant, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Elements Restaurant at The Four Seasons Riyadh offers a variety of cuisines throughout the day and night. Unlike most All Day Eateries this facility provides the highest quality of food in luxurious and visually stimulating surroundings. There are a variety of different show kitchens offering different cuisines all displayed and prepared beautifully.

The lighting has been carefully conceived as part of the overall design philosophy with the show kitchens and displays having a dramatic and theatrical quality with eating areas enjoying intimacy. The lighting consists of a combination of elements, integrated light within counters at low level, integrated light within high-level canopies and cornices, highlighting of displays and tables with narrow beam spotlights, and a variety of decorative luminaires.

All the lighting is connected to a computer controlled pre-set scene-setting system that has been carefully organised to provide the perfect atmosphere at each moment of the day and night.

 

Four Seasons Hotel, Cotto Crudo Restaurant, Prague, Czech Republic

The Four Seasons Hotel is one of Prague’s most exclusive hotels and has the only Michelin-star restaurant in the city. When the hotel felt it was time to refurbish and relaunch the restaurant with a new name and interior, dpa were approached to design the lighting.

The Bar and Restaurant are bright and airy by day, with views of Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge. In the evening, the lighting helps create an intimate dining experience within the restaurant. The Bar uses lighting to highlight decorative materials and interior details. Carefully selected artwork lighting, well-integrated lighting within furniture details, and candles on tables combine to create a vibrant and sophisticated night time destination.

 

The Perfectionists’ Café,
T2 London Heathrow Airport, UK

The Perfectionists’ Café draws on the vernacular and ambience of the 60’s “heyday” of passenger flights when air travel was deemed glamorous. The interior style, finishes, and lighting echo this. Lighting was a key component to the success of the restaurant at the briefing stage with the lighting design requirements to consider the huge competition within the terminal, the ‘show kitchen & bar’ and the Ice Cream Parlour which were the backdrop to the theatre that was to be The Perfectionists café. Energy requirements were very strict as dictated by Heathrow and the usage throughout the day and night with the extreme daylight and artificial terminal lighting throughout the day and nights were an added challenge.

Working closely with interior designers Afroditi Krassa Studio, dpa’s design integrates and complements the unique and vibrant interior spaces to enhance the rich materials with a mixture of subtle brushes of light coupled with more dramatic accents to further enhance points of interest throughout the restaurant.

Our role was also to review, coordinate and suggest any additional decorative lighting and to provide the wow factor with lighting.

Design Approach & Challenges

The overall impression of the restaurant and, in particular, its elevation is the ‘band of interest and activity’ from the buzzy bar area at the entry point to the other side of the restaurant where the pace is more relaxed. dpa provided design solutions for the floating facia, backlit lettering and accent lighting to the feature mechanical clockwork knife which sparkles like an expensive Swiss timepiece.

The bar and café counter stretches seamlessly lifting the layers of interior materials with light. The displays to the rear are the main focal point with lighting integrated within ceiling details to minimise view of lighting equipment. This provides accent lighting to food displays, interior objects, and materials of interest such as the wood oven, bar, café and Ice cream parlour.

Interactive ‘triggers’ were designed into the scheme with Controlled Lighting Ltd to provide an extra touch of ‘theatre’ and interaction. For example, the bread oven is spot lit at the opening and recedes to the back when in use. Also, the bar cocktail area receives a similar accent when in use as does the nitrogen station for the ice-cream machines with colour changing lighting being activated when the nitrogen vapour pours from the bowls.

Individual table lights and floor lights to seating areas were introduced to the areas where ceilings were not possible to provide intimacy and a human scale to what is still a large terminal building and vibrant artwork provides a backdrop to the banquette seating areas.

All lighting utilises LED’s including the decorative pendants, table and floor lights.

A lighting control system provides the necessary variable lighting scenes to provide appropriate day and intimate and moody night scenes.

Client and Operator: The Fat Duck Group
Architect: Offset Architects
Interior Designer: Afroditi Krassa Studio
M&E Consultant: B.E.S Ltd

Photography courtesy of Sim Canetty-Clarke

 

The Summit Club Revolving Restaurant, Hotel Kunlun, Beijing, China

This is a recent refurbishment of an existing restaurant located on the 29th Floor of Beijing’s Kunlun Hotel.

The Summit Club is the only revolving restaurant and lounge in the Central Business District, where guests can enjoy a 360-degree panoramic view of the surrounding area as they dine. The interior of the restaurant is characterised by large-scale silk pendant shades internally lit with warm white and UV blue lamps. The lampshades slowly cross-fade between the alternate colours as part of a pre-set lighting sequence. The restaurant has teppanyaki style show kitchens around the central core with back-lit decorative glass screens and backlit glass cladding to the cooker hoods above the teppans.

One of the challenges of the project was providing power to the accent lighting integrated into the freestanding screens located on the revolving floor. Our solution was to utilise large rechargeable batteries to power the LED light sources, which are periodically recharged by the hotel staff.

 

Toro Toro, Grosvenor House, Dubai, UAE

The Grosvenor House in Dubai is already well established as an excellent hotel together with its iconic Buddha Bar. Grosvenor House Tower Two was completed in 2011. dpa lighting consultants worked closely with LW Design on the Embassy Club, Siddharta Lounge by Buddha Bar and Toro Toro. The hotel states it is “Poised to turn up the heat considerably in the city’s already famed dining scene, it pioneers tastes from Buenos Aires to São Paulo and offers a multitude of Pan Latin dining experiences paired with an infinite Cachaça Bar”.

The multi-layered lighting provides an appropriately evocative atmosphere for such an important restaurant. The circular coffers in a burnt orange are illuminated with concealed light, the backlit stone walls create a striking feature, pendants over key tables offer intimacy, features are high-lit with adjustable spotlights, etc. Every element on the interior has had the lighting carefully considered to reveal surprises throughout the restaurant complex, which is spread out over two levels. As ever, decorative lights and candles are as important as any other lighting device to create the ambience.

As with almost all dpa projects, the control of the lighting is activated by a scene-set system that has pre-determined lighting scenarios.

The Luggage Room at the Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, London, UK

The Luggage Room at the Marriott Grosvenor Square draws on the vernacular and ambience of the 20’s intimate cocktail bar with sumptuous luxury in every detail of the interior and furniture design.

Working closely with interior designers Fabled Studio, dpa’s design challenge was to integrate and complement the elegant interior spaces and enhance the rich materials with a mixture of subtle brushes of light coupled with more dramatic accents to further enhance points of interest.

Key elements include displays that sparkle with depth, quality, contrast and elegance, uplighting to feature window screens, and accent to artwork and curiosities of a bygone era. Concealed lighting to the bar exposes delicate yet robust detailing echoing traditional steam age luggage and fine liquors and wines glow with concealed lighting in the bar, liquor cabinets and wine displays which all add to the overall character of the space.

Bespoke decorative lighting designed by Fabled Studio provide a signature to the lighting ambience while dark reflective surfaces catch glimmers of light.

An architectural lighting control system provides the necessary variable lighting scenes to provide appropriate day and intimate and moody night scenes for the late night in-crowd.

Theo Randall at The InterContinental Hotel, London, UK

The Intercontinental Hotel in Park Lane has undergone an extensive refurbishment to the public areas and rooms. As part of the refurbishment is the destination restaurant “Theo Randall at The InterContinental”. The entrance is a glowing corridor welcoming guests through to its intimate interior. Lighting is used here to provide backlighting to various materials and accent tables, objects, and art. The key to the lighting success here is the ability to control each lighting component and provide focal points within the interior. Lighting has been used to backlight the bar top and back bar display. The feature columns with grass motif are backlit to provide an ambience to the central area of seating while the tables are spotlit and as with all of the other lighting are dimmable to provide appropriate ambience through the day and night.

Client: Intercontinental Hotels
Interior Designer: J2 Design
Project Manager: Fitzsimons

Silk Road Restaurant, Crystal Symphony Cruise Ship

Crystal Cruises are a very special Cruise organisation providing the highest quality of environment, service, and itinerary to their guests. Both their ships now have a restaurant that provides a sushi bar and food by the famous restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisa.

dpa lighting consultants worked closely with the client representative Alexandra Don and Interior Designer Adfecto to produce a very special environment. The lighting was carefully designed to ensure the theatre of the sushi bar could be enjoyed alongside an intimate dining atmosphere at the table.

A combination of decorative ambient fixtures, narrow beam spotlights to the tables, and the highlighting of various other features around the space, linked to a scene set control system, ensure the atmosphere is just perfect to complement the food.

Client: Crystal Cruises International
ID: AD Associates

 

Serre Restaurant, Okura Hotel, Amsterdam

The Okura Hotel, Amsterdam has recently undergone renovation of the main Serre Restaurant and Bar and Function Suites including Grand Ballroom.

dpa worked with interior designers RPW from London to create a stunning and appropriate destination restaurant and terrace beside a buzzing canal in the heart of Amsterdam. The lobby bar complements the new restaurant with dark tones and appropriate lighting to provide a dramatic interior using layers of lighting from concealed linear lighting, to low level bar and seating and pin spots to tables and decorative screens. The restaurant was a particular challenge with a crystal clear conservatory providing views onto the restaurant terrace which, comes to life at night with concealed dramatic lighting from linear planter up lighting, tree up lighting and delicate and magical copper lanterns in the feature trees.

The Function Suites and Ballroom have had a contemporary facelift to freshen and energise the spaces. Artwork and contrasting materials are accented, along with a review of the energy issues by utilising low energy light sources. The ballroom has received a huge transformation with colour change LED coffer lighting and a magnificent feature lighting artwork of tree crowns symbolising the trees to the landscape. The lighting is concealed behind the ‘tree crowns’ suggesting the glow from a moonlit night through trees and is complemented with dappled light to the face of the trees from gobo projectors carefully recessed into the ceiling.

 

 

Manns Wines, Wine Cellar Renovation, Nagano, Japan

Manns Wines treats their special guests to fantastic dishes at their Private Dining Room and Cellar which was designed by Interior Designers – Design Eight.

dpa’s scope of work consisted of the Wine Cellar, the Tasting Room, and the Dining Room. All of these facilities are located underground in the garden next to the winery and close to the vineyards so artificial lighting was an extremely important component to the interior spaces.

In the cellar wine bottles are displayed on shelves with concealed linear LED. Refraction of the light from the wine bottles and their contents creates a beautiful glowing ambience with the wine becoming luminous. Table stand decorative lights form a line along the wall producing a relaxing atmosphere and softening the overall ambience this also leads guests into the tasting room.

Original wine racks have been reused to create a display wall in the tasting room, with light emanating from beneath to create a graphic dot pattern on the wall.

As always the lighting control is an essential part of the proposal with each different lighting element separately circuited and dimmed to allow a variety of lighting scenes to be created.

Photography courtesy of Joshua Lieberman

Interior Designer: Design Eight

Mandarin Oriental, Prague, Czech Republic

The majority of the photography for this project is courtesy of:
Mandarin Oriental / George Apostolidis

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel is located within the Mala Strana historic quarter of bohemian Prague. The project consisted of the refurbishment of a disused Baroque style building, which started life as a monastery before ending life as a print works for the local government.

As lighting consultants we worked closely with the Interior Designer and the National Heritage Authority (NPU) to ensure a design which, while sympathetic to the architecture of the building, responded to the needs of the hotel’s guests and operator.

NPU placed stringent requirements on the locations and appearance of luminaires within the historic areas of the hotel, which resulted in the bespoke design of three different luminaires.

Within the restaurant it was only permitted to mount luminaires on the wall, a luminaire was therefore designed that had three individually controllable light sources, providing a low-level wash of light to the floor, an uplight component revealing the structure of the low vaulted ceiling while also providing ambient light to the space and a decorative element for visual interest.

In the Monastery Lounge and Ballroom, the solution was to create a luminaire of stone appearance, concealing three different light sources all individually controllable. Allowing a general ambient illumination to be achieved while revealing the columns and vault with a concealed up and downlight. Luminaires were also concealed in the reconstructed column cornices providing additional uplight to the vaulted ceiling. Within the Ballroom, a number of chandeliers, constructed from local bohemian crystal, were hung from the central point of each vault.

Scene setting of the lighting is utilised to lower energy usage and to set the mood of each individual space appropriate to the time of day or function. One area where the controls were especially important was the bar whose focal point is a backlit glass bottle display. The colour of the lighting has been carefully chosen to suit the mood and time of day, varying from a bright invigorating sky blue in the morning through to a deep saturated red for late night drinking.

Client: Finartis Financial SA
Operator: Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
Project Manager: Bovis Lend Lease
Interior Design: Sporer Plus
Concept Interior Design: KCA International
Spa Interior Design: Deckelmann Wellness
Photography: Courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.

 

 

The Landau Restaurant, London, UK

The Langham Hotel, London is home to the Landau Restaurant along with the Artesian Bar. The dramatic interior design combines modern orientalism with the romance of Victoriana. The interior and exterior entrance spaces are enhanced by a thoughtful and considered design, with lighting complementing and accentuating these features.

dpa’s challenge was to bring out the best in the interior features with lighting and integrate this seamlessly and as anonymously into the fabric of the interior.

Key interior elements are accent lit to provide drama to the spaces while soft washes of light gently bring the interior surfaces to life.

The external entrance is understated yet strong in character with shielded lighting to steps and planters, again, exposing the materials and surfaces, while a backlit traditional canopy formalises the entrance.

The maître d’ area is kept simple to provide focus through to the feature wine displays within the vaulted corridor, which is softly uplit to express the vaults.

The restaurant perimeter is accented with uplighting to windows and sheers to reduce the awareness of the busy street beyond as well as to respond to the feature interior elements. Contrast and theatre is achieved by only lighting interior elements of significant visual interest. Tables are spot lit to further provide both drama and intimacy. Art objects are illuminated to add interest to the perimeter views along with the feature banquette seating lights, which are designed by the interior designer. These are further complemented by feature interior designer selection chandeliers within a lit ceiling coffer. Simple, recessed trimless downlights are used sparingly to light artwork to the perimeter walls.

The service areas have also been given care and attention to the lighting, ensuring that the lighting to this area is controlled separately from the main restaurant lighting, so that this can be balanced appropriately through the day and night scenes to maintain a harmonious lighting level between the respective guest and staff areas.

In addition to the interior lighting, careful consideration was taken to select external lighting to the window reveals to complement the interior views out and to further reduce the awareness of the busy street beyond.

Lighting control was used as an essential tool to provide versatility for the hotel for various settings through the day and night and to allow mood and ambience to be achieved, which is particularly important for evening dining.

Client: Langham Hotels
Operator: Langham Hospitality Group
Project Manager: Fitzsimons
Architect: Formation Architects
Interior Designer: David Collins Studio (Artisian Bar and The Landau Restaurant)
M&E Consultant: Mitie Engineering

Mosaic – Phoenicia InterContinental, Beirut

Mosaic is a recently refurbished All Day Dining Restaurant in Lebanon’s foremost hotel, the 5* Phoenicia InterContinental, Beirut.

The restaurant offers an ever-changing variety of International and Oriental buffets, daily live cooking stations and generous displays of the very best regional cuisine.

Interior Designers LWD have created a contemporary and elegant dining destination with an oriental and arabesque inspired ambience.

dpa worked closely with the designers to create a lighting design that is sympathetic to the interiors and that emphasises the intricate features and rich textures. Special attention was made to the play of light and shadow through decorative screens and chandeliers. Also special emphasis was required for highlighting the collection of artwork including the 5senses feature wall display.

The restaurant’s mood and atmosphere can be altered from vibrant through to romantic via pre-set lighting scenes to suit the time of day and occasion.