EDL Laminated Showroom

A laminate company envisioned a product gallery at their new headquarters, an immersive space designed to inspire creativity and exploration. The lighting team was tasked with lighting the façade and the gallery interiors.
As the building is in an industrial area which is subdued at night, the team sought lighting enhancements which accentuate the architectural features in a sensitive manner. There was restraint in the amount of equipment used, to control the budget and to facilitate maintenance.
A dominant element is an outdoor staircase, set against an off-form concrete wall and framed by metal mesh. The idea of expressing silhouette and texture was key, using projectors to wash the top of the concrete wall, highlighting its outline while amplifying the dark metal frames. Next to this brutalist element, an adjacent glass block is internally illuminated, with uplighting to window fins lending a further interplay of light and shadow. The glass building’s appearance is enhanced without weather exposure of luminaires. 4000K lighting brings out the starkness of concrete, while 3000K lighting enhances the warm window fin material.
Stepping into the gallery, one enters a contemplative bar area. Dark, muted finishes help to focus the attention on a central giant lampshade, illuminated with indirect light and finished with laminate materials. The library showcases an extensive wall collection of laminates, generously washed with directional downlighting. To reduce shadows, deep cone ‘skylights’ were devised to provide a blanket of soft ambient illumination.
The main gallery – named ‘The Canopy’ - evokes a forest. Discreet spotlights are tucked artfully amidst ‘foliage’ crafted from laminate pieces. Approaching the dark, curving perimeter walls, a ‘river’ of LED strips in the ceiling is revealed. This detail was devised to surprise, but more importantly provides shadow free illumination to large pull-out laminate panels. The ‘tree trunks’ reveal warm, intimate spaces for close inspection of products. Interactive tunable white lighting allows visitors to appreciate products under different colour temperatures.
Adjacent to ‘The Canopy’, three tunnel-like chambers house more collections. Here the lighting takes on a cool and pure atmosphere, where 4000K lighting gives a strikingly different sensation from the warmer 3000K areas outside.
The lighting approach created a thoughtful journey for visitors. A play of warm and cool lighting was carefully applied, to create a change in mood and to complement spaces with different materiality and functions. The balancing of downlighting and ambient lighting levels was calibrated, and bespoke lighting details give an element of surprise. Products are flaunted in shadow free light while achieving contrasts and accents in the overall environment, carefully avoiding a boring flatness. Discreet luminaire placement and detailing enhance visual comfort and high CRI ensures the colour accuracy of the products.