Artesanías de Chile is a craft store located at the first basement of the Cultural Center La Moneda CCLM, however it has a big contribution of natural light. A first great challenge of the project was dealing with this illuminance and brilliance, which at first was thought to be a great light contribution to the project, but which ended up being a great challenge to compete with the exterior levels and achieve good visual comfort from the interior.
The space has a full-length showcase window, with an exhibition of handicrafts both towards the outside of the store and towards the interior, so it was necessary to greatly increase the interior levels immediately next to the window in order to compete with the great contrast that generated in the pieces.
The wall parallel to the window that occupies the back of the store was considered a piece of furniture for displaying objects throughout its length. It was decided to illuminate this complete piece of furniture with greater intensity in order to be easily seen from the outside. It was proposed to put on the entire length of it wallwashers that would raise the entire piece as a whole, and then each of the shelves were illuminated with 3W mini spots. The decision to use spots and not led strip incorporated into the furniture was directly related to allowing the textures of the exhibited elements to stand out and not flatten them with homogeneous light fixtures.
The interior design proposed a level ubicated at 3.50 meters from where the facilities and electrical would be left in sight to the slab. At that height all the luminaires were hung, thus allowing to order that change of aesthetics between what happened above and what happened below. track lights were suspended and wallwasher boxes were stud mounted.
The only element above this level are the flags that show photographs of very relevant craftsmen and women from Chile in different traditional trades (craftsmanship). These black and white flags were highlighted with individual spotlights, also helping to lift the back wall of the store with light, thus attracting attention from the outside.
For textiles and coloured elements, special high colour rendering lamps were used.
