DHA Designs are currently focusing the lighting for the Bristol Aerospace Museum at Filton.
DHA light the Bristol Aerospace Museum
Category Archives: Recent work
Eneko at One Aldwych wins at the Restaurant & Bar Awards
Casson Mann‘s design for Eneko at One Aldwych has won the award for Best restaurant in a hotel at the 2017 Restaurant & Bar Design Awards. The awards, hotly contested over thirty categories from best restaurant to best Middle Eastern & Aftrican bar, are judged by a team of industry-recognised figures and were presented at King’s Cross Events Space on 6 October.
Casson Mann’s scheme was judged to be the winning scheme from a shortlist of seven entries that included the designs of the new Devonshire Club in London, Rofuta in Birmingham & Refuge in Manchester.
The design of the restaurant necessitated a complete re-think of a difficult space: below ground in a corner of a large London hotel, with no access to natural light. The scheme created a grand staircase entrance to a mezzanine bar that floated over the restaurant below, giving a sense of spaciousness and airyness to a space that had had little of either before. Casson Mann’s palette of textures and materials reflected the heritage of chef Eneko Atxa’s Basque heritage, using local woods for the tables and ceramics typical of the area for wall claddings.
DHA were engaged to provide the lighting scheme, including elements of concealed lighting so that diners are given the impression of being surrounded by natural light, despite being metres underground. Shane Holland Design was brought on board to create handmade suspended light fixtures over each booth table to a particular design by Casson Mann’s creative director, Roger Mann.
Whales: Beneath the Surface – Lighting by DHA Designs
DHA Designs provided lighting schemes for both the majestic central Hintze Hall, and the coinciding exhibition Whales: Beneath the Surface. To accompany the The Natural History Museum’s unveiling of the new Blue Whale in the Hintze Hall, a new exhibition opened at the same time emphasising the museum’s shift in emphasis from extinct marvels to endangered wonders.
Whales: Beneath the surface provides visitors with the chance to encounter some of the largest objects in the museums vast collection, and to reveal the complex lives of the biggest animals on the planet. On display there are more than 100 specimens which range from huge skeletons, skulls and most impressively the preserved flipper of a blue whale.
Whales: Beneath the Surface. ©Natural History Museum
The exhibition is open until February 28, 2018 at Natural History Museum, East Lawn, Exhibition Rd, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
V&A Exhibition Road Quarter with DHA lighting scheme opens to the public
DHA Designs have provided the lighting scheme for a new porcelain-tiled entrance and underground exhibition hall at the Victoria and Albert Museum with AL_A. The V&A Exhibition Road Quarter opened to the public on 30 June 2017 and includes a new entrance to the museum along with additional gallery space and a courtyard.
The £54 million scheme by London based firm Amanda Levete Architects is the largest development at the museum for over 100 years and provides over 6,000 square metres of additional space.
DHA provided the lighting scheme for the entrance facade, Sackler Courtyard, new entrance interior and the underground Sainsbury gallery.
Exhibition Road entrance ©HuftonCrow
New Entrance Interior ©HuftonCrow
Hope, the blue whale, stars in the newly re-opened Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum
After a three-year design and construction process, the Hintze Hall was opened to the public on the 18th July. The star of the space is Hope, the female blue whale who beached in Ireland, 126 years ago. Hope has been hung in a dynamic, diving pose, to greet visitors as they come through the entrance doors to the museum. DHA Designs worked with the renowned exhibition design company, Casson Mann, on re-lighting the entire hall and the new exhibits, which showcase some of the star items in the Natural History Museum’s enormous collections of flora and fauna.
Hintze Hall
DHA’s lighting scheme sought to give the space the ‘cathedral of nature’ that the hall is known for, replacing an ageing and inefficient scheme that had little flexibility for events and evening uses of the museum, which are very popular. Further, an entirely LED-based system was used, including all of the showcase internal lighting, to reduce the maintenance and energy costs in this enormous space, and the control system allows the museum staff to switch from museum to event use at just the press of a button.
Hope, the Blue Whale
The new hall has been described glowingly in the press, and a fitting tribute to the conservation and preservation work that the museum is known globally for.
DHA also produced the lighting scheme for the coinciding exhibition – Whales: Beneath thesurface. As a Blue Whale becomes the must-see display of the Museum, visitors can dive deeper into the mysterious world of Cetaceans in the new summer family exhibition.