Illumni feature our C.P. Hart Showroom project

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CP Hart’s new showroom at Waterloo is an aspirational environment, designed to be much more than just a showroom for designer bathroom products. Along with product displays, the space has been made suitable for launch parties and is used as a working environment for designers and their clients – with a focus on creating a memorable customer experience. The showroom is located under the brick railway arches leading to Waterloo station, offering both an impressive architectural volume with high vaulted soffits and textured brickwork throughout, and a challenge to the designers to ensure these features didn’t overwhelm the space.

StudioFractal worked closely with CP Hart and the project architect Morrow Lorraine, to understand the customer zones within the open-plan space and to develop an overall lighting strategy. Carefully considered lighting techniques work with the architectural character to create atmosphere, visual modulation and flow, defining individual spaces and encouraging visitors to explore. Each customer zone has very specific characteristics and functions, varying from a high-end bathroom gallery to a café / bar area. During the initial lighting strategy work, StudioFractal proposed the use of warm white and cool white lighting to fully enhance the visual impact of each zone. Cool white lighting provides pureness and sparkle on the porcelain bathroom suites, whilst warm white lighting creates a relaxed environment in the entrance lobby and café bar. This variation also provides visual modulation in the overall lighting scheme, creating areas of focus that punctuate the customer’s journey through the showroom.

LED lighting has been used throughout, in a wide variety of applications to create a varied and rich visual environment. Suspended over the entrance lobby, undulating copper pipes are softly illuminated by an LED fibre optic system, creating a relaxed and warm welcome. Throughout the main display areas, dimmable track mounted LED spotlights provide a flexible ‘gallery’ environment that allows CP Hart to continuously evolve and change the format of the showroom. At the far end of the showroom, a copper pipe maze with LED filament lamps creates a dramatic chandelier over the café bar that becomes a focal point, drawing customers through the showroom. Background lighting onto the old brick arches and subtle gobo projections onto the floor provides an additional layer of warmth and texture that seamlessly links each of the zones whilst also allowing their individual characters to be expressed.