Kiss me quick

When we last featured Cinimod Studio’s concept for the Snog store in Soho, it had just won the Lighting Design Award for hotel and restaurant lighting. One year on, a new store is set to open on the King’s Road - lit entirely in LED. Jill Entwistle reports

Snog could have gone either way. It could have remained a quirky little frozen yoghurt outlet in London’s South Kensington, entertaining the locals with the novelty of its digital sky ceiling. Instead it will mushroom, if that’s an appropriate analogy for a frozen yoghurt chain, to 20 outlets in the UK and overseas by the end of the year.

The design, specifically the lighting, has been a key ingredient in its ascendancy. One suspects that not having the creative constraints of a large retail rollout has contributed to its success.

Starting small allowed everyone to think big.

Perpetual summer

Although there are generic elements to the design - the size of the store, the idea of perpetual summer, white furniture, the trademark pink - the ceiling is about innovative, eyecatching, entertaining lighting. Paradoxically, what makes the brand recognisable is the fact that this element - animated sky, 700 illuminated glass globes - is always different. And fun.

“It’s a continuous evolution of the initial concept but there’s no boring repetition to it,” says architect and lighting designer Dominic Harris of Cinimod Studio. “We’re still playing each time.”

The latest London outlet, in Kings Road, Chelsea, represents a first on three counts. The undulating, rainbow-coloured LED canopy has been created using parametric software (a method which involves setting up a design system where parametric design variables can be altered synchronously in order to generate its form).

It also uses a new lighting control system from amBX that approaches complex lighting sequences in a completely new way. And it is lit entirely by LEDs - Philips StyliD projectors and downlights, plus linear LED fittings - with downlights inset into two strips in the ceiling the length of the store. “All the functional lighting uses LED fittings as well, down to the staff toilets and service cupboards. We’re balancing this evolving design with evolving technology.”

The Ribbon Ceiling is made from CNC-cut mirrored panels with a stretch ceiling diffuser across the bottom, and varies in depth and pitch. There is a ‘ladder’ grid of individually controlled RGBW LED battens - specially designed and fabricated - inside each ribbon, spaced at 13cm centres. There are 400 strips in all.

Dynamic ripples of colour

“They provide a fantastic, unique ‘aspect ratio’ for our digital media control, with ripples of colour moving dynamically and interactively across the entire store,” says Harris. “It became an important design feature that RGBW LEDs were used, because the white LEDs provide a much better colour control and rendering. This allows for much more natural colours, including sky blues that are not over-saturated as they would be with regular RGB LEDs.”

Where it starts getting seriously cool, though, is with the lighting control system, a customised version of amBX’s amBIENT XC DMX controller. “We have a passion for experimenting with lighting control systems, we want to keep pushing the interactive and generative nature of our digital lighting media content,” says Harris.

“What I really spend time on is making sure that, on the control side, we’re doing something more interesting with this canvas that we’ve created.” Dominic Harris, Cinimod Studio

Creating complex lighting sequences with RGB LEDs usually needs a lot of programming. Using this embedded technology, the amBX controller takes real-time audio and video feeds and uses the content to control RGB LEDs, allowing instant and constantly changing lighting effects to be created in real time without lengthy programming. In this case it responds to a music soundtrack.

“What this does is give the store a more edgy feel - nothing ever repeats, it’s an ever-evolving lighting landscape,” says Harris. “It obviously picks up some of the rhythm of the music but not in a disco way. It’s like a generative lighting control system, always evolving and building on itself. The effects can be complex but the means to create them are not.”

International future

With the logistical difficulties of relocating Snog ceiling concepts to international locations, simplicity has become a primary goal. “This is probably one of the schemes that has had the most thought go into it in order to make it as simple and untechnical as possible. Because the London stores are becoming the template for the international outlets, we really worked on creating a system that was extremely easy to install and maintain.”

The ceiling aspect of Snog schemes is obviously the sexy part and Harris acknowledges that it’s easier to get lighting Facebooked and tweeted about when it’s a bit rock and roll. But he is also concerned to point out that the lighting ambience as a whole is crucial where Cinimod is concerned.

“We balance the lumen output. The ceiling is there to provide illumination and a sculptured lighting element. We have to get the right colour temperature, make sure people have the right shadows across their faces, have the right contrasts. There is also serious conventional lighting design that goes into the stores.
“With the King’s Road store, by making the entire scheme LED based, I think we’ve evolved both parts of the lighting scheme equally - the feature art part and the functional part.”

www.ambx.com
www.cinimodstudio.com

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