Lights reused in major refurb at food court

Designers working on a major refurbishment at a food court have managed to reuse all the original luminaires.

Reflex Architects were tasked with the complete revamp of the MEET dining plaza in Stockholm.

The brief called for the complete transformation of the canteen-like plaza into a sophisticated and ‘cosy living room’ style eatery for both lunches and evening dinners.

‘Not a single light was thrown out,’ says Beata Denton, the lead lighting designer at Reform, part of Reflex Architects, who wrote about the project in a social media post. ‘No empty words, this one is for real. I’m super proud of this project where we reused light fittings whilst totally changing an indoor environment.’

The original space featured uplighting, whole homogeneity, says Denton, made diners feel ‘exposed’.

There was also ‘linear light running right through the whole space ‘like a motorway, no place to rest’.

The space lacked intimacy and space making.

In the refurbishment, the uplighting was dimmed down to between 5 and 10 per cent. The linear lights were switched off.

The pendants, which provide general lighting, were rearranged according to furniture layout so that light is only provided where needed.

The design practice added 25 narrow beam pendants to create what it terms ‘cosy and intimate’ spaces.

New furniture was brought in but all existing furniture was repainted and reused in different parts of the shopping mall.

Stockholm-based Reflex Architects creates what it terms ‘smart architecture for complex projects’ in both buildings and interiors.

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