Excerpt: Light Echo_TW Showroom, designed by KiKi ARCHi, transforms a traditional industrial factory building into a personalized office and showroom. The factory building with a sense of history has been transformed into a modern office space for the enterprise. With the fusion of design, the red brick building is wrapped in white grilles, evoking a new perception of industrial forms and materials. From the building facade to the front hall showroom, the rest space, and the corridor, the whole environment is always run through by ‘light’.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The arrangement of light is crucial to an image, whether it is in the basic lighting, atmosphere, mood rendering, characterization, etc. From pre-shooting to post-production, the video artists control the brightness, angle, and color of light to form an atmosphere that fits the scene, and participate in narrative and expression. And this artistic technique of creating with light and expressing the unspeakable feeling is also applied to interior design. In Beijing Qikeshu Creative Park, KiKi ARCHi has been invited by a professional film and television production company to transform a traditional industrial factory building into a personalized office and showroom. The team starts with ‘light’ and uses the virtue of its characteristics to present ‘color’ abstractly way. Along with the natural interaction of people in it, the picture changes subtly with moving, and light echoes are in-between reality and illusion.
The factory building with a sense of history has been transformed into a modern office space for the enterprise. With the fusion of design, the red brick building is wrapped in white grilles, evoking a new perception of industrial forms and materials. In terms of the facade, the design team has removed part of the red brick wall and replaced it with a large area of glass to introduce more natural light into the interior. This approach not only responds to the conceptual element ‘light’ but also moves the main entrance to the east, creating a sense of detour in experience.
Stepping into the lobby, the large-area color tube installation, which is completely different from the white facade, looks very refreshing. From lines to faces, and prisms, it repeats the array to construct three special-colored walls. The bright warm scene provides a sparkling warmth, which is a continuation of visual memory and a recall of the old factory days. This indirect form of color expression brings a sense of flow and undulation, and also invisibly echoes the shape of the facade. Under the fusion of shape, color, light, and shadow, the indoor and outdoor spaces have a connection with the creative park, the city, and even people‘s thoughts. Going up the stairs on the south side to the public corridor area of the company, people can see another ‘face’ of the color tube installation. It shows with a deep and cold scene, creating a calm office atmosphere.
The textures of color tube installation (hue, brightness, saturation) divide the whole space naturally, this unique effect is based on many experiments and tests by the design team. For the first, light and transparent acrylic material is used to make a single prismatic color tube. Then a 3M reflective film is attached to 2 of 4 faces. Finally, the color tubes are placed at a 45-degree angle to realize color changes between movements. When people look at it from the front of the hall, the whole installation reflects warm tones, giving a comfortable experience, while from the inside, it is a cold tone, creating a calm atmosphere.
The space on both sides of the color tube installation is the office area for the technical staff who take color correction work, which means a dark-colored corridor environment is more conducive to work. Against the background of stainless-steel walls and light strips, the entire corridor is like an art gallery, reflecting ‘light and shadow’ and creating echoes. This simple design approach not only responds to the theme but is also functional and ornamental.
Below the installation, there is a rest area for visitors to interact and immerse themselves. Countless steel wires are wrapped by transparent 2cm acrylic cylinders. They connect the ceiling and the ground, while arranged in a dense and orderly manner. With the upper and lower lights, a natural and ethereal sense of light and shadow emerges, like a light carrier, supporting a brilliant dream.
Starting from the attributes and needs of the enterprise, KiKi ARCHi has created a unique belonging space for users. From the building facade to the front hall showroom, the rest space, and the corridor, the whole environment is always run through by ‘light’. It flits across different objects – translucent glass, gorgeous acrylic, mirror stainless steel, etc. Immersed in the ‘light echo’, the rhythm spreads everywhere, and people’s thoughts in the space also can be extended far away.
Images
