Improving the lighting of a restaurant…
Singapore, 28th November 2014
The interesting thing of our profession is that you get to do the expected and the unexpected, the pleasant and the unpleasant, never a dull moment, with the point being that our days are generally never the same. Today was one of those days that combined regular design work with meetings but topped up with a dinner at a local restaurant. It was however not an ordinary dinner, it was a work dinner…one of the restaurant owners in town called me in to help improve his lighting. The restaurant was opened recently but the overall mood and ambience is clearly lacking. I suggested coming on a busy night to get a feel of the activity and how people move around in the restaurant for a better understanding of the space usage, so I had my dinner like a normal guest, observed the comings and goings and made notes or where I feel improvements can and should be made.
My main approach will be two pronged. First I will refocus, reposition and reprogram the existing light to see what can be achieved with what he has, as my starting point is to make sure I get the most and the best with what he already has. It would be easy to just get rid of everything and start from scratch, but not very budget friendly! Once that is done I will get a good feel of the base from where to develop improvements further. The next step will then be to put together recommendations and propose some conceptual ideas for further improvements towards what I feel would be the optimal lighting design for the space. To make the decision process for the client easier I will work out a budget breakdown for each step of the proposed improvements so that a staged implementation can be selected according to available budget. This is a friendly approach that leaves the client in total control of his expenditure
While I lost a lot of weight over the last few months (of which I am very proud!), getting paid to go to a restaurant and have a meal is one of those pleasant perks of our job which I happily accepted!
Light Watch 5-203: The restaurant as it is now; it clearly lacks any definition of space and contrast with little balance of brightness and focal interest even though the material choices and interior design concepts are quite nice…a clear example how lighting can make and break an interior. Pictures of the improvements hopefully in one of the future blogs! Have a great weekend.
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