The first flagship store for Sky is located at Westfield White City in London, and was completed in December 2021, with the telecommunications company commissioning dpa lighting consultants to develop the lighting new concept.
The brief was quite clear but simple in that the new concept had to be flexible, with particular focus on the product displays and with a lower ambience and more ‘residential’ feel. Since a big part of the product offer is home television/entertainment-based, it was important to try and achieve a slightly softer, more residential feel than normal retail. A CCT of 3000K was considered a good balance between retail and residential, and high CRI was considered very important.
The focus of the customer was to be at eye level, onto the product and not upwards to the ceiling, so there is an emphasis in integrated furniture lighting for visual interest and product highlighting. The concept then evolved a little to include feature pendant clusters over the key VM positions.
The basis of the ambient and display lighting from high level comes from a neat track and spotlight solution suspended within the open ceiling and services. This provides a varied light pattern with focused highlighting of the product displays and a comfortable, warm, ambient effect. At lower levels, linear halo lighting to display panels, backlit graphic panels or concealed lights underneath centre floor units provide further visual accent and interest.
The main space within the store also features two “hero pieces” in the form of semi-custom pendant features; based on a standard Orb pendant from Stoane Lighting, these have been adapted to operate with RGBW light sources. As standard they are set at warm white with a periodic sequence, with additional colour sequences for special events or times of the year also programmed. Seven specific SKY brand colours are included within the programming.
These “hero” pendant clusters merge with the more traditional architectural lighting elements to help create a warmer, more residential ambience within the store. The overall lighting scheme relies on the layering between different lighting elements to create an interesting three-dimensional effect. The additional integrated lighting to furniture, steps, handrails, and columns very much accentuates that 3D lighting scheme.
The store also features several “Experience Booths” – private rooms that were designed to simulate a home environment to showcase Sky’s home cinema systems. These booths were developed with dimmable, automated lighting. The rooms were specially designed to promote the new Sky Glass TV system, and to show the customer the functionality of the system on a personal level. The lighting for these rooms was part of the room AV system, such that a pre-programmed dimmed sequence is triggered once the TV handset is activated.”
