Caffè Concerto Window Styled Lightboxes
Caffe Concerto use custom window-styled LED Lightboxes to emulate daylight
After Caffè Concerto were awarded a prestigious location in Piccadilly by The Crown Estate, who own “a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole”, they set about creating an interior worthy of such a building.
However, while the interior design concept created a luxury space, what Caffè Concerto has in terms of character, it lacks when it comes to natural light.
We were contacted by Tekne Shopfitting, who were appointed to implement the new design, after they saw our lighting expertise first hand whilst working together on Clarks new showroom.
Brief
Dover Design, interior design specialists, were looking to add light in the areas you’d expect the find them in any other building – along the stairwell and around the perimeter of the seating area.
An initial idea was to create simple mock-windows in each location, backlit by fluorescent tubes. This would have created hot spots local to where the light fittings were positioned, and also meant sacrificing control of colour output.
Lighting
After a design briefing at our London Studio, our solution was simple. By using a Ledge 65 LED Lightbox, it would be possible to create irregular shapes that fit the contours of the stairwell perfectly, with integrated LEDs that were selected to mimic the colour temperature of natural sunlight.
Also wanting to add faux-daylight to an inaccessible mezzanine above the double height salon restaurant, we again used controllable ‘daylight’ LED lighting, however this time we sat each lightbox behind a window-frame fascia, adding to the illusion of daylight.
Knowing all too well that daylight isn’t a constant (especially in the UK!), we added controls to the lightbox that allowed the team at Caffè Concerto to maintain the ambience no matter what time of day it is, or what the weather outside is like.
The Result
Our solution provided Caffè Concerto with a solution that:
- Emulated daylight in key areas
- Quality controllable LED illumination in custom shapes and sizes, all manufactured from our Manchester-based HQ
- Provided high-quality dye-sublimated graphics capable of withstanding the rigours of a fast-paced environment, whilst incorporating a special diffusing nano-coating on the reverse.
It was a pleasure to work with the team at Tekne Shopfitting once again, especially on such a prestigious project. Our collaboration resulted in a solution that made Dover Design’s vision a technical reality, and all parties were incredibly happy with the end result.
