|
| | | | |
|
 | | EUROPE’S FIRST RETAIL STORE LIT COMPLETELY WITH LEDS | | | Lumileds | | 23/01/2007 | | | Spanish jewellery store’s lighting as unique as its Gaudi and Puig architecture
Background
The past fourteen years have been good to Barcelona. Beginning with its selection to host the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, this ancient Catalonia seaport has been rejuvenated. The city is a haven for intellectuals, film-makers and designers - and it has become a major city break destination, famed for its stylish shopping, bars and restaurants.
Barcelona has also been the home of some of the most visionary artists of the modern era. From Pablo Picasso's Cubism, Dali's Surrealism to the architectural wonders of Modernisme, the Catalan version of Art Nouveau, led by Antonio Gaudi Cornet (1852 - 1926) and Josep Puig i Cadafalch.
Since 1969, seventeen of Gaudi's works have become national monuments in Spain and are protected by law. Each Gaudi building has its own special characteristics and looks like none of the others, none more so than the Gaudi and Puig building in the heart of Barcelona that is now the home of the latest upmarket Rabat jewellery store.
Barcelona has always been considered the vanguard of design and so it is perhaps no wonder that this exclusive jewellery shop is the first store in Europe to be lit completely with LEDs, in an innovative project by LightLed
S. A., part of the Odeco Group.
Requirements
The glamour and artistic style of Barcelona provided the ideal location to create a unique shopping experience incorporating the latest lighting technology.
The brief from Rabat's internal architect, Estrella Salietti, was to provide a customer-focused atmosphere, while creating a dynamic, stylish environment that distinguishes the luxury Rabat brand from traditional jewellers.
A key element of the project was its lighting, with the designers looking to create Europe's first store lit solely with LED technology to enable enhanced performance, efficiency and creativity. To achieve this Spanish lighting specialist LightLed S.A., part of the Odeco group, chose to work with the latest high-power LEDs from Lumileds Lighting to create a solution that truly differentiates the shop through the use of dynamic light effects.
The Lighting Solution
Lumileds Luxeon LEDs were used throughout by LightLed S.A, creating Europe's first retail store to use LED's as the sole light source.
The long life of Luxeon LEDs (50,000+ hours) ensures that the light sources can be built into the store fittings, without concerns over replacement and minimising maintenance costs. This has also allowed the designers to be more creative in their lighting requirements, bringing a stylish, glamorous ambience to the store.
The luminaires use Luxeon of various colour temperatures to enhance individual areas of the store - cool colours of 6,000K for the ceiling, warmer at 3,000K for the jewellery and intermediate temperatures for the presentation and selling areas. Full colour backlighted panels are also used, with a large 3m x 1m panel utilised to create homogenous, colour-changing light and numerous creative effects.
In total over 4,000 Luxeon I and 1,000 Luxeon III LEDs have been used within the store, for the general lighting, specific jewellery lighting, presentation tables, stairs and washrooms.
Jordi Rabat of Rabat Jewellers, said: 'This is a major new store for Rabat, located in a wonderful Gaudi and Puig building in the heart of Barcelona. The lighting is key to the successful presentation and atmosphere of our shops, but for this store we needed something extra special.
'We wanted the lighting to reflect the uniqueness of the building, while having the impact to attract customers into the store. LightLed has created the ideal solution, ensuring our jewellery is beautifully presented.'
The LED Advantage
The LED solution brings a number of advantages for the Rabat jewellery store. The low power consumption of each LED-based fitting results in only 5kw of energy being consumed when the lighting throughout the store is on full power, providing significant energy savings over conventional light solutions.
The small size and long life of Luxeon LEDs means they can be built into fixtures and fittings, allowing Estrella Salietti to use a combination of colours, including red and amber, and varying light intensity to enhance the jewellery displays without overpowering them.
Luxeon was also selected for its longevity. The LED light source has a service life of many years providing the opportunity for integration directly into fixtures, while avoiding concerns over replacement and lowering the on-going maintenance costs associated with traditional light sources.
The quality of the lighting solution is also ensured, with Luxeon LEDs retaining 98% of their brightness after 3,600 hours and generating at least 70% of their original light output at 50,000 hours of operation in typical conditions. Unlike most LEDs, Lumileds designed Luxeon with long life in mind and created an LED with unique, long life performance.
In addition, Luxeon brings further advantages - full dimmability, instant illumination, precise beam control, minimum glare, low UV light for minimal fabric fading, and a cool light beam that is safe to the touch.
Keith Scott, market development manager at Lumileds, said: 'The use of Luxeon throughout this Rabat store demonstrates the creativity that can be brought to designing unique and signature lighting solutions. By working with the designers, LightLed has created compelling lighting effects and demonstrated the benefits of lighting with Luxeon.'
The Results
The result is a lighting solution that focuses on the jewellery cabinets and products, without spreading the light on the floor.
Through the use of creative, flexible lighting, the Rabat store has helped position itself as an innovative, upmarket jeweller. The design is customer focused, attracting custom into the store and presenting the jewellery to the best effect, while also complementing the historic architecture of the building.
Sergio Campoy, ODECO Group President added: 'This type of lighting system has never before been possible. For Rabat we created a solution that truly differentiates the shop through the use of dynamic light effects. This is the first retail project using only Luxeon, and we are confident that the success of this - and the energy and maintenance savings - will attract a growing number of customers in this market.' | |
|
| | | View similar articles: | | |
| | | |
|
 | People who viewed this article were also interested in |  | |  |
|
| Other articles from Lumileds | | | |
|