The vision for lighting was to provide a memorable and captivating impression of Melbourne as a city to visit, or come home to, via an immersive sense of theatre, surprise and rarity. Lighting would be central to creating a warm, luxurious and inviting ambience and encourage a moment of pause along the traveler’s journey.
The concept was to seamlessly integrate the lighting into the fabric of the architecture in keeping with the language of the geometric canopy – the obvious hero of the space. The aim was to enrich the opulence of gold materiality, while highlighting the multi-faceted surfaces of the ceiling theatrically through light and shadow.
Light was to define a central path of travel, while keeping the shopfronts in relative darkness. The internal glow of the shops was to be framed in contrast by dark coloured entry portals, creating a sense of allure from within the luxury retail offerings.
The main challenge was how to provide the functional lighting within such a substantial space (completely absent of natural daylight) without suspending from, perforating through or adding anything additional to the ceiling.
Multiple options that would allow light to be woven into the fabric of the intricate and highly complex geometry of the design were explored. The favoured approach however, concealed the light fittings from prominent view, allowing the lighting effects to reveal the architectural heroes of the space. The solution combines functional lighting elements within an expressed, bespoke architectural detail.
Electrolight worked closely with the design team to realise a series of five metre long gold channels that are integrated within selected seams of the folding ceiling structure. These custom elements were manufactured by iGuzzini. Each channel houses four (4x) thirty-one watt, trimless, High Contrast Laser Blade light fittings. The light sources, fixed within the channels and mounted at steep angles, were strategically placed at alternate edges of the entrance hall. The result is a unified, central path of illumination.
Adjustable spotlights were mounted above the shop portals and aimed across the canopy in order to highlight the unique, origami-like nature of the design and to enliven the glimmering nature of the gold material. The combination of this feature lighting and surrounding reflective materials, makes further spectacle of the triangular patterns that are experienced throughout the journey of the mall.
Multiple layers of light were applied in order to create a highly textural visual environment. Details of spill light within architectural plenums and at the base of permeable materials, such as the gold chain walls of the lounge, occur on a more intimate level to foster moments of respite and provide a contrast in scale against the grandeur of the arcade/mall.
The result of the lighting design was achieved by the incentive to preserve and enhance the aesthetic of the intricate and delicate nature of the architectural vision.
