Arcapita HQ / Manama, Bahrain
The massive building, equivalent to a horizontal skyscraper, is one of the most characteristic features of the capital city of Bahrain's skyline, and the owners wanted to treat and reveal it by night. Since the facade was made of glass mostly, I decided to integrate automated blinds into the lighting system, so that they would close after office hours through a time-based trigger. In doing so, the light could bounce back from the textile material in order to reveal the massive volume by floodlighting. What could have been a simple project became complicated because the number of locations that could be used to place fixture groups, the distance between them, and their distance from the building, were all limited and already defined, so I had to do a lot of calculations by using large groups of fixtures with different optics to achieve a homogeneous effect on the facade, without shadows or hotspots, while accentuating the features with higher illumination levels. The design was approved by the board.
