Crystals at City Center. Focus Lighting collaborated closely with architects Studio Daniel Libeskind, Rockwell Group, DIRT Studio and WET Design to create a visually complex and technically advanced lighting design for this LEED Gold Certified interior urban park. Hundreds of drawings, three models and multiple full-scale mock-ups were completed over the course of three years to fully integrate the lighting into the architecture and special features. The soaring spiral ceiling of the atrium is uplit with color shifting LED fixtures located on skylight ledges and semi-recessed in the walls to provide a kinetic, shifting environment evoking the rhythm of the urban fabric. Angular, slashed ceiling slots are integrated into the spiral ceiling to house the general lighting and accent fixtures.

Light slashes are cast across the interior walls in angular motions that are representative of the architecture and suggestive of sunlight cast through the skylights. LED and Accent fixtures are incorporated into the backlit Grand Staircase, the 60ft high organic Treehouse and the steel Hanging Gardens pathway. Dynamic color shifting spotlights sculpt WET’s Glacia’s carved ice columns, and powerful metal halide accents enhance Halo’s water vortexes that rise from the floor. These interior events create a progression that guide your experience and provide intimate moments in this vast atrium.

Cast glass Mermaid Torsos surge out of the floor with integral LED up-lights to provide a glowing surface on which to showcase the jewelry. Metal-halide accents from above spotlight the pearls.  Multiple lighting treatments and sources were tested on the torsos with pearls loaned from the Mikimoto store in New York City.  This examination helped define the correct fixture outputs and beam-spreads to best showcase the merchandise. Inside the store, scallops of light - tightly coordinated with the seams of the travertine stone - cascade down this “coral wall” like beams of sunlight filtering through the waves.

Mother of Pearl chandelier pieces lit with metal-halide accents hang over the jewelry cases and provide an iridescent feature floating above.  The store’s merchandise is showcased with eco-friendly light sources that adhere to the building’s strict energy requirements. For the first time in Mikimoto’s history, metal-halide and LED sources, rather than halogen, are used to accent the jewelry and provide general lighting for the store. Through a creative use of energy-efficient, low-maintenance sources the lighting system stays within the energy allowances for the building, while simultaneously realizing the “Deep Blue Sea” concept.  

Davis + Warshow, one of the country’s leading kitchen and bath distributors, re-designed their flagship showroom to create a streamlined, modern environment for their products. Emanuela Frattini Magnusson of EFM Design laid the framework for the interior of this showroom in the A&D Building, the largest luxury kitchen, bath and home products center in the NY metropolitan area. The experience begins as you step off the elevator and enter through a long, dramatic passageway, inspired by the dynamism, fluidity and color of water. The indirect cove lighting enhances the architectural outlines of the corridor and the blue gradient finish on the walls. To provide a focal point at the end of the entryway, Focus Lighting and EFM Design created a cutout Davis & Warshow logo sign, revealing a seamless video display of moving water behind.

Inside the showroom, general lighting located in wall coves above the finished millwork level, helps balance the strong daylight contribution from the windows. The kitchen and bath fixtures are accented with energy efficient 20 watt ceramic metal halide sources from ceiling track positions, highlighting the glossy metal and special finishes shown throughout the product displays. Backlit panels featuring vanity mirror images are interspersed throughout the bathroom sink displays, recreating familiar domestic tableaux.

The curved glass wall which houses the wine shelves is perched above the bar and front dining area. Displaying an array of options in top shelf wines, the neon backlighting and halogen up-lighting give the clear shelves an enticing glow and futuristic modernism. Focus Lighting designers made a big push to use dimmable white LEDs in many of the decorative elements throughout the restaurant for their versatility in lighting control, low-maintenance and efficiency. The lighting is the element which adds life and consistency to the materials and the forms within the luxurious yet functional space.

To contrast the seemingly stark interior elements, bright colors and patterns of light punctuate walls and floors and guide patrons through the exhibition space. Backlit mesh walls glow to divide the exhibits from the common area. A clean, modern concession area features recessed squares of white light in the ceiling to bring overhead lighting to the sub-cellar of the building. This solves the problem of low ceiling area by creating a pleasant level of ambient lighting where people feel comfortable having lunch or browsing through the souvenirs at the close of the exhibition.