Michael Mulhall, Director, Dernier & Hamlyn, shares how inspiration for bespoke lighting concepts can come from anywhere, revealing the lighting design details from a variety of luxury hospitality projects.
Design inspiration can come from myriad sources and often hits when it’s least expected; it’s this skill that the very best designers possess, taking the unforeseen ideas and utilising them in their concepts and proposals so that they make a harmonious contribution to the ambience and aesthetic.
With bespoke lighting, inspiration comes to the designers we work with from all sorts of places and senses and where we can we help by providing ideas and information. The right lighting is pivotal to creating an appropriate ambience in most spaces. Nowhere is this truer than in luxury hospitality where high quality bespoke lighting is invariably used to set the tone in reception areas, restaurants, and bars.
Designers seek inspiration for their bespoke lighting schemes from a wide variety of sources. Sometimes it’s from the environs of the hotel or it can be its historical context or heritage roots. While often it’s more about the atmosphere they want to create using suitable materials, colours and lamping to achieve their ambitions.
Where architectural context is important designers often refer to our extensive lighting archive which has been built up over Dernier & Hamlyn’s 130-year history. It comprises a wealth of drawings, watercolours, photography and decorative elements that provoke thoughts and inspire designs in a variety of ways.
A company that has been around since 1888 clearly has a significant back catalogue of projects not only in hospitality but also in superyachts, luxury residential, high-end commercial and heritage and designers will often use this to research period appropriate lighting references.
Tina Norden is a partner at Conran & Partners. She said: “Bespoke lighting is a key part of our interior design and an important element for the spatial experience. We always develop lighting features as part of the design concept right at the start so it is part of and expresses our overall concept.”
A complex project we were involved in was redevelopment of the former Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly. Appropriate light fittings helped to take the bars and restaurants back to their original style when they were opened in 1915 as part of the largest hotel in Europe with 1028 bedrooms. Our team was asked to help recreate lighting that was seen in previous iterations of the building. This included lighting for Crazy Coqs, the intimate live music and cabaret venue located inside Brasserie Zedel. We worked closely with the design team to restore and recreate light fittings that closely resembled but gave playful new life to the historic lighting by referring to archive photography for inspiration.
While in the grand and bustling Parisian Brasserie Zedel itself many of our team’s varied skills were utilised. Three large oval lights made of cast aluminium and glass and eight u-shaped fittings required extensive renovation. Over the years various glass panels had been replaced leaving a mishmash of styles and designs which were removed and replaced, although they have been stored for heritage recording purposes.
In order to replace the glass sections, we first had to produce a variety of straight and curved moulds to produce the various sizes and types of glass panels required which were then installed in the restaurant.
While at Nobu London Portman Square we worked with David Collins Studio bringing to bear our team’s wide-ranging artisan skills in a variety of ways to produce more than 100 individual lighting pieces crafted from brass and hand finished in bronze. They feature in the most spectacular areas of the hotel including wall, ceiling and pendant lights in the restaurant and bar and private dining room.
Particularly noteworthy bespoke light fittings crafted to David Collins Studio’s designs included:
- In the restaurant’s lobby lounge a pendant some 1600mm square and four square luminaires that sit atop cabinets containing wines and spirits comprise hand crafted brass frames fitted with glass panels on which bespoke parchment shades are fitted.
- Four bronze pendants finished in antique brass some 1300mm in length are above the sushi bar which were hand cut, shaped and welded fitted with bespoke handmade seeded glass shades.
- Twelve ceiling lights for the main restaurant feature reeded glass tubular shades and hand formed brass end caps. They are fixed using 1m long handcrafted brass rods fitted with solid brass spheres.
- Dernier & Hamlyn also engineered an 80m brass track system to accommodate hand folded white paper shades created by Danish bespoke shade maker Le Klint.
- Twelve colonnade lights wall lights are installed in the lobby ceiling which were formed from brass sheets cut by hand, all pieces all individually silver soldered and finished in a unique bronze shade created by the David Collins team. Light is softly dissipated through the 22 shades created by sandwiching luxury Spanish parchment between glass panels
David Collins Design Studio’s design director Lewis Taylor says: “We have a proven track record of collaborating with Dernier & Hamlyn to create unique lighting pieces that are finished to the highest quality. Their craftsmen and technicians really know the level of detail we will want to go into and the uncompromising quality that we expect. The process of transforming an idea off paper and into reality with them is also an enjoyable one with sampling and mock-ups to ensure the desired finished lighting effect in addition to the finished product.”
One of the most complex light fittings our team has ever made was for The Mandrake, the luxurious boutique hotel in Fitzrovia in the heart of London’s West End. Inspired by the medicinal properties of the plant after which it is named, the interior is eclectic and vibrant and features carefully curated artwork and intriguing soundscapes.
When it came to lighting for The Mandrake’s Penthouse Suite, designer Lara Bohinc chose Dernier & Hamlyn for the room’s very distinctive chandelier because she had been told we were probably the only company in the UK who could respond to her demanding commission.
The resulting chandelier comprises hundreds of metal tubes hand formed in brass. Each tube was hand finished in antique nickel and mechanically fixed to the fitting’s aluminium frame. This ensured that the metal finish was of the very highest quality and consistency while the frame was as light as possible to aid installation. This beautiful chandelier is fitted with more than 30 LED G9 lamps that give the perfect level of illumination for this very special room.
For the fantastic statement chandelier which graces the impactful reception at The Langley, Dennis Irvine, now a Director at Richmond International made playful reference to the hotel’s setting as a former royal hunting ground. It comprises 221 curved arms made in solid brass and hand finished in antique brass in our factory. Each arm has been fitted with a handmade glass spear, each hand cut to form facets to either side.
Working with leading designers including David Collins Design Studio and Kim Partridge Interiors, we produced a variety of custom light fittings for the historic Adare Manor’s public spaces. The design intent for this historic building, whose roots go back to the 1720s, was to acknowledge its past and reinvigorate its spaces for the present and the future.
The lighting was a fundamental part of achieving the desired ambience and combined traditional materials and designs with the latest LED technology and engineering to ensure it not only looks appropriate but also complements the building’s architecture.
In the Tack Room, the lighting contributes strongly to making the former servants’ quarters a haven of welcome and warmth. Wall lights feature opaque shades edged in warm reds to generate a cosy glow, with fixings designed and made by our team that secure the lighting in place, while having no impact on the stone columns which support the vaulted arches of the ceiling, in a design drawn from the 12th century.
While in the Carriage House, the newly constructed restaurant is a smart and polished room, with nods to art deco chic. The lighting we made includes pendant lighting, bar lamps and over table lighting which create a warm glow and intimate mood throughout the room.
Simon Rawlings, Creative Director, David Collins Studio says: “Dernier and Hamlyn’s lighting concept within the Carriage House and the Tack Room delivered the Studio’s brief with great execution and quality. Ambient and subtle in the Tack Room, where fringed lamps reveal little nooks set within the historic space. Whilst in the Carriage House, the lighting is versatile and adjusts as the space does – bustling with golfers during the daytime to a chic, atmospheric destination by night.”
Working to a Martin Brudnizki brief, Dernier & Hamlyn our team produced bespoke lighting for Scarfe’s bar at Rosewood London, known as one of the most exciting places to drink and dine in London.
The hotel’s interiors draw on classic British design and culture so we were the natural choice for this stylish project. The bar features Dernier & Hamlyn crafted globe chandeliers, some 2m high that have been hand finished with a stunning verdigris effect. They are complemented by lamps with bronze bases and opal glass shades that add a further dimension to the wooden bar that runs the length of this convivial room.
It’s clear that some of the UK’s most talented designers draw on inspiration from a whole range of places, resources and thoughts and come to our team to help them turn this into light fittings that help them to create the desired design narrative.
