Designing good lighting for hotels is about more than creating stylish products that are on trend and look the part. It’s about top quality products that provide efficient lighting and enhance the guest experience, whether through multifunctional guestroom lighting or bold public area statement pieces. Lighting really does make or break the traveller’s hotel experience, something which is illustrated by recent extensive research conducted by Osram suggesting that of 10,000 recent hotel reviews in London most guests complained about the dim, bad and sparse lighting in their rooms. Accordingly when we design either our standard lighting collection or bespoke pieces, we do so from multiple perspectives; either from that of the hotelier, the interior designer and above all else the guest.
1. Aesthetics
The first thing to consider is the aesthetic of the product, does it look the part and fit in with the overall design concept? Interior designers are pushing the boundaries more than ever before, always looking to create unique interior schemes for hotels that offer something different and inevitably lighting is an essential part of that. It’s often asked whether table or floor lamps can make a difference in a guestroom or are they surplus to requirement. Well they most certainly can by adding ambient lighting and creating atmosphere in what has become an increasingly multifunctional space.
Following the latest industry trends and ultimately trying to pre-empt them is a critical part of the design process. Nobody wants to specify outdated products so we try to recognise emerging trends as early as possible and use them to inspire our collection. Take the Bullet range for example, we identified that retro styling and industrial cues were becoming big news on the interior design scene, so we designed the range based on retro styling from the 1960’s with an assortment of finish options to appeal to our international client base. To mix the wish of the guest who wants enough light and the wish of the hotelier who wants low energy costs, it had to be LED with an integral 6watt LED chipboard located behind a frosted diffuser in order to give soft light with no glare. Contract functionality means solid steel and brass construction, locking swivel joints with toothed locking key for secure arm position. The multi-swivelling head enables guests to control the position of the light whilst the weighted base houses the LED driver and ventilation holes in the head ensure that barely any warmth is emitted from the light source.
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