Design Diary – Bringing the Lighting Designer Onboard

Plans are developing and I have brought in a lighting designer to help with the project.

This is an important element, as they have all the technical knowledge for determining light levels and color, and are up on all the latest technology and product. There are some interesting challenges to be met.

The space is very tall.

The existing room is 12’-6” tall, and after doing probes we found that there is an additional 3 feet of ceiling above the dropped ceiling. I planned a floating cathedral type ceiling to emphasize the height of the space, but to also bring it down to human scale. In between the two flooring planes is a “crack” through which the lighting fixtures will hang down “magically”.

The owners are art collectors so the walls must be washed with light for the art.

The foyer is very narrow.

We need good, functional light for reading, cooking, working, playing piano, and all general uses.

Gan Leehanantakul of G2J Design has some great ideas combining regular fixtures with LED lighting throughout. The light color and quality is good, it gives off very little heat, the are small and flexible and last for a long time so we won’t have to change fixtures in these very tall rooms.

She has great solutions for making the living room ceiling float and added details at the edge of rooms for clever sources of light that won’t look obvious or cliched. She created a faux skylight in the kitchen with LED fixtures.

Gan’s sketches follow. She has put in furniture and art as place holders, which we will select at a later date.

Sketch of Living Room Section with "Floating Ceiling"

Section through Living Room

Master Bedroom

Entry SpaceSection Through Dining Area and KitchenSection Through Dining Area and Kitchen

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Design Diary – Kitchen

The kitchen is a key part of this apartment as it’s open to the living loft area. The clients are really into cooking, and had lots of requirements about space to cook, appliances, materials, etc.

I found a new company called Lucenti Altay. Biagio Lucenti worked for many years at Poliform and he is now importing kitchens, baths, doors from Italy.

We are going to use soft colors, an off-white upper glass cabinet, a taupe lacquered lower cabinet, and Corian countertops that look like rice paper. The images below give you an idea of the style. It’s very clean and modern and they have great details like LED lights that glow when you slide open the drawers.

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Designer as Shrink

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