The Current and Emerging Lighting Trends in Hospitality
Hospitality is all about creating the perfect environment and mood and transporting the customers to a magical world of beauty, relaxation and coziness for the time they are there. Whether a hotel, restaurant or resort, the environment of a hospitality space needs to be inviting as well as enchanting, sometimes even astonishing, to create a uniquely elevated experience for the customers.
As a result, hospitality spaces are designed to impress and pamper a wide range of visiting customers with visually exciting interiors with some drama elements thrown in. Sometimes they are also designed to showcase a theme or tell a brand story.
Lighting plays an important part in this process. Not only does lighting serve the functional task of illuminating and beautifying a space, it also creates the desired mood and spectacle. As in any space, lighting in hospitality spaces also calls for a layered approach with ambient illumination, task and focal lights to achieve both visually attractive and functional interiors. So, designers use a combination of architectural and decorative lighting. The ambient light provides overall illumination, while concealed architectural lights offer task and focus lighting.
Today, constant innovation and a search for new aesthetics has led lighting manufacturers to come up with highly creative and stylised lighting solutions. Apart from the traditional ceiling and wall lights, designers use a plethora of decorative lights strategically placed across the room to create magical environments. From hidden lights in the ceiling and walls to lights as walls or space dividers, there are new options to add theatrics to a space. Some lights come with the option of varying the luminosity or the pulsations using a remote. Whatever mood you have in mind – grand, classic, modern, contemporary luxury or an eclectic mood – it is possible to evoke using lights.
Decorative ceiling lights or chandeliers act as the main ambient light source. From timeless classics to contemporary geometrics to abstract designs, or a blend of styles –there are many options for chandeliers. It could be one grand chandelier holding all attention or a bunch of them. Smaller chandeliers can also be used in room corners for an unconventional style.
Pendant lights offer the flexibility of hanging them from any part of the ceiling. They can be used on the bedside, room corner or next to the seating in living rooms to create a new aesthetic. They also come in imaginative shapes or formations covering a large part of the ceiling.
Similarly, hidden / cove lights are an integral part of the lighting scheme to make up for the glare or deficient light from chandeliers or ambient lights. They help to spread light uniformly across the room. Focus lights highlight objects like sculptures, artworks, table top arrangements etc., thus complementing and completing the whole lighting scheme. So, it’s a fascinating world of creativity and innovation that has revolutionised the lighting scenario.
Apart from these signature lights, to complete the illumination of a hospital space, designers need wall sconces, floor lamps and table lamps. These lights help avoid shadows by adding an extra layer of lighting. They also help the designers to add a sculptural look.
A layered scheme of lighting includes a blend of decorative chandeliers and pendant lights, wall sconces, table lamps, floor lamps, wall art, screens, and many more. Carefully planned layers of lights create a truly scintillating, yet, functional space. LED technology allows the designers to create sculptural lights, or lights of any shape or form.
Czech designer and producer of decorative lighting fixtures, glass objects and architectural features, Sans Souci specialises in lighting for hospitality. With its array of statement lights that can be custom made to any scale, Sans Souci creates tailor-made installations for the various parts of a hotel or restaurant that elevate the splendour of the space several notches higher. From the lobby, reception, corridor to restaurants, conference hall, ballroom, and bedrooms, Sans Souci offers a wide range of inspired lighting solutions according to the context and location.
Sans Souci decorated the dining room at the Widenmoos resort in Switzerland with a new design of its Antlers light, which was inspired by the refreshing surrounding nature. Integrating high technology and innovation, Sans Souci offers lights whose luminosity can be altered. Opera is a dynamic light that is programmed according to your luminous preference. With Aurora, the light sources are programmed to put on a pulsating show of different coloured fans, rays or drapes. The lighting installation can be quickly and easily controlled by an iPad or iPhone.
Apart from the traditional ceiling and wall lights, today there are many ways lights can add design element. At W Dubai Hotel on The Palm, Sans Souci has installed various Avant Garde lights. At the W Lounge, a luminous fire pit offers a welcoming gesture, which is enhanced by a set of magical Chinese lanterns. On entering the main Atrium hall, you will be amazed by a large pyramid bar construction composed of dozens of glass pyramids, which are lights on their own, thus offering an eco-friendly option. The various shapes and sizes of the glass pyramids with a metallic nano-coating finish appear like mirrors, thus acting like self-illuminated lights, as they reflect and absorb the surrounding light, and reflect again the mirror effect throughout the overall setting. This is cutting-edge creativity.
San Souci also showcases wall lights that work as wall art, as well as curtain-like lights that can be used as screens to separate spaces in large lobbies or to create intimate spaces. They have recently introduced exclusive partition walls, dividers and sculptures created out of glass using various techniques. They are highly functional, and also provide an interesting decorative element. They are a fantastic way to not only divide space, but also to create privacy. You can use them in bedrooms to separate the sleeping area from the lounge, and in bathrooms as shower curtains. The spectacular Vice Versa light has also been used as a screen.
