Professional Lighting & Production - Summer 2018 | Page 23

The watchword for the overall design was
“infinity.” “We kept the scale of everything
large and the backgrounds soft and mono-
chromatic to highlight Samsung’s technolo-
gies,” shares George Foussias, design director
at Quadrangle.
Although the store is inside the mall, its
footprint and expansive two-storey glass
façades – one facing east towards Yonge St.
and one facing west into the mall proper
– make it look more like a standalone retail
space. Consequently, as important as set-
ting the mood inside the store was, because
of its location, projecting that atmosphere
outside was also a major concern. “It was
vital,” Foussias explains, “considering we are
on a corner right at Dundas Square.”
Frankly, everything outside is competing
for attention – lights, video screens, and
just plain old downtown Toronto shopping
chaos. Ultimately it was decided that the
best way to compete with all that flash was
to offer an alternative.
“We wanted the space to be the strong,
silent type on the corner,” Foussias says – a
means to showcase Samsung’s brand
identity and set the store apart from other
technology outlets and nearby retail outlets
inside and surrounding the Eaton Centre.
The view of the interior from both inside
the mall and outside on the street was an
early consideration. “We were very aware of
how it was going to look from the outside,
because, even though it is within the mall,
it’s a hybrid – not fully a mall store, but
almost a standalone store. When we lit this
we had a strategy to make sure all the lights
were properly integrated so you don’t see
visible fixtures.”
Typically, the lighting in other retail
outlets – like the nearby H&M, for example
– is extremely bright. Samsung wanted to
present a contrasting atmosphere and en-
ergy and convey more of a café or boutique
vibe. “And I think that makes it stand out,”
says Alula Lighting Design Director Rebecca
Ho-Dion, who created the lighting design
– “far more than stores that are over lit and
where you’re blinded by surgery lights.”
Foussias and his team sculpted an
environment that encourages customers
to connect via shared experiences. The
goal, he says, is for them to visualize how
the technologies on offer can positively
enhance their lives. “The most important
thing they tasked us with was to create an
environment where the journey [through
the store] happens naturally.”
Consequently, each area had to tell a sto-
ry by illustrating the potential that various
products can offer to consumers, whether
they’ve come to look at mobile devices,
home electronics, appliances, or other
technologies. “For example,” Foussias offers,
“I’m a photographer, so the Samsung phone
is interesting to me, and the areas that
display the phone also display camera gear,
VR goggles, and lenses, so they’re creating a
story by showing what you need to create
with, along with accessories.”
The concept of “infinity” drove the choices
of the light fixtures and the overall quality of
light in the store. “The architecture is a major
driver of the mood,” says Ho-Dion. “There are then made sure we designed the light levels
to be just enough.”
The intention wasn’t to blow customers
away with the lighting’s look or intensity,
but rather provide a comfortable envi-
ronment and essentially remain in the
background. “It’s not in your face,” Ho-Dion
says. “It’s about helping you to experience
the environment.” Consequently there are
no showy, extravagant lighting elements, no
decorative chandeliers or futuristic clusters
of bulbs. Instead, the focus was on general
illumination, subtle accents for product
displays, and reinforcement of the “infinity”
concept.
a lot of cove elements in the store.”
In lighting, she elaborates, “cove” refers to
an architectural condition concealing the
light source and requiring indirect illumi-
nation. “So many of the light sources were
hidden – integrated in a way that’s similar
to how, I think, Samsung is promoting their
products as integrated into life.
“We specifically chose 3,000 Kelvin as the
colour temperature throughout – basically
warm light. The store is immediately across
from others that are very brightly lit and
have an alert kind of feel. We used cove
lighting strategically and a lot of down light
because we needed a certain light level for
general merchandising. We used high-
quality down light luminaires with good
cutoff angles for glare-free illumination and Flow was key. “We wanted the lighting
to show the feel of the place,” Foussias says.
“We wanted the walls to be curved and
the customers to have a journey that never
stops, so we don’t have any dead ends.
Everything flows around the space, up the
stairs, across the upper area, and back down
again. You never feel like you’ve got to stop
and backtrack.”
There are few hard angles evident; in fact,
viewed from most angles, various features
meld together sculpturally as a unifying
feature of the interior design – the central
curvilinear staircase and avocado-shaped
counters and displays, for example, or the
green wave-like cove design on the walls lit
above and below by hidden LED strips and
sandwiched between grey fabric.
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