Rothy’s footwear gives new life to discarded plastic water bottles, using yarn made from recycled plastics along with a proprietary 3D knitting that significantly reduces waste to create sustainable and stylish footwear.
The lighting team was tasked with finding solutions to make the small store feel more spacious, while reinforcing the Rothy’s brand and utilizing innovative technology and design, keeping in spirit with the ethos of the start-up company.
The luminous membrane ceiling provides a daylight-like ambiance throughout the store, while integrated spotlights with high color rendering highlight the myriad of color choices available. Through the use of irregular quadrilateral forms, lines of the ceiling plane converge to shift human visual perspective creating the illusion of a larger space.
With the lighting system encompassing the entire ceiling plane, comprehensive coordination with the design team was paramount. Metal troughs housed not only lighting, but sprinklers, air-conditioning, smoke detectors, speakers, alarms and daylight sensors; all elements painted matte black to reduce visibility. During construction the lighting team worked closely with contractors to ensure proper execution of the design team vision.
Central to the Rothy’s brand, blue is symbolic of the source of the knit material and is showcased on the heel of each shoe. Blue LEDs reinforce this brand identity, creating an underwater atmosphere evoking the water bottle concept, as well as bringing attention to ocean habitats that suffer the most with their improper disposal.
This blue feature operates primarily during special events, contributing to a memorable branding experience. A combination of blue lighting with spotlights is also programmed after-hours to create a significant marketing statement for Rothy’s.
Stringent code requirements resulted in minimal lighting behind the ceiling membrane, requiring mindful consideration of luminous efficacy and diode density. Likened to building a tri-dimensional illuminated puzzle, every detail of the membrane ceiling and metal troughs were meticulously designed and engineered to perfection. Sharp edges of the slants were another challenge requiring a unique design solution, with the LED’s strategically placed in narrowing corners to avoid unevenness on the membrane ceiling.
While the white lighting was designed for uniformity, the blue feature was intended be read as geometric waves. LED strip-lights were mounted sideways along each membrane perimeter to create the desired fluidity.
Magnetic boards integrated into wood paneling allow displays to evolve to accommodate new merchandising. To facilitate lighting adjustments, the track system utilized LED lamps with field changeable lenses to adjust beam spreads combined with honeycomb louvers for glare control and visual comfort.
