Located in the heart of Canberra Civic is the new dining concept restaurant called Inka. This Japanese Peruvian restaurant offers a unique dining experience with a modern take on Japanese Nikkei style cuisine.
The interior design concept looks to capture the authentic blend of cultures seen only in the Japanese restaurants found in Peru. This mixture of heritage, cultural symbolism, textiles and vibrant colour makes for a visual feast unique to this part of the world.
The food is exquisite too, with a blend of traditional Japanese Nikkei influenced by the lively Peruvian spices and cooking methods. The lighting needed to capture an atmosphere that transcends the dining experience, providing a character that exhibits the fruity South American vibe with the refinement of a Japanese fine-dining experience.
Having worked with our client on several other projects, we had their confidence in designing and delivering a lighting scheme that fits hand-in-glove with the interior concepts, projecting a vibrant Peruvian personality as well as the feeling of intimacy expectant of a high-end Japanese restaurant.
The project combines 3x bold custom designed and fabricated feature luminaires, 6x art & artifact displays, and a handful of unique integrated lighting details to help bring the personality of this restaurant to life.
All sources are 2700K LED and effort was given to ensuring all luminaires were precisely located and targeted to illuminate only what is intended. Lighting of the various features, art and artefacts was designed to best express the colour and textures, but ensuring there was no ‘residual’ lighting effects or unwanted shadowing.
The use of rechargeable lanterns to the tables enables a functional intimacy without a need for harsh overhead lighting, particularly in the double height space. Many of the interiors have been selectively left without direct light to help create a theatrical hierarchy and depth of layering that only the combination of light and darkness can present.
In addition to the obvious lighting input, our team provided critical input to the interior designer during the early phases for the use of various finishes to best achieve the desired atmosphere. This included darkened ceilings and mirrored walls to help extend the boundaries of the visual experience.
The entire restaurant sits on a DALI control system, allowing full control of the installation. The scenes have been created for Day, Night, Late Night, Intimate and Cleaning modes. These all run on a scheduled timeclock, but can be overridden on demand before resetting to default each morning.
