Sustainable coffee chain reuses lights

A SUSTAINABLE coffee chain has become the latest industry client to specify pre-used luminaires for one of its outlets.
Origin, a B-Corp-approved company, insisted on second-life lighting for its cafe, roastery and food outlet in Porthleven, Cornwall.
Vintage fluorescent fittings with updated LED sources are used throughout the space, which has been created by interior designer Megan Sadler.
In the Roastery, feature lighting includes reclaimed German cargo ship lights and airfield taxiway lights. All the lighting is supplied by local firm Skinflint.
The area has a minimal industrial style softened with planting and natural wood elements including the tables and chairs.
It’s a clean and open space, retaining cosy corners whilst offering full transparency of their roastery operations visible through glass windows behind the counter.
Alongside barista training, QC and technical facilities, the Roastery has a sit-in cafe where visitors can enjoy food and drink whilst viewing the roasters in action.
Here two industrial fluorescent lights are reused to illuminate the counter and barista machines.
The lights have been sensitively restored by hand by Skinflint and have been updated to accept modern LED fixtures.
Sadler says the fluorescent lights were chosen as a feature over the bar ‘both for their aesthetics and story; being reclaimed from an old factory in the Midlands. All the lights were chosen for their original cast maker’s marks and manufacturer’s detailing – I love this expression of where pieces have come from.’
The German cargo ship wall lights were chosen for the office breakout spaces, because of industrial yet refined style, which worked with the aesthetic the company wanted to create.
Sadler continues: ‘The airfield taxiway lights have a similar language to the cargo ship wall lights as they both have prismatic glass, and they create a beautiful lighting effect for the stair lobby leading to the office space.’
Photography: Rhona McDade