Week 9: Site Specific Blog

For this project I chose to go to The Irvine Spectrum. This project was interesting to do so close to the Holidays because the lighting in this venue was amped up to match the holiday spirit. What I found while I was walking around is that, in general the Spectrum is lit to make the consumer feel like they are in a special and classy place. When you walk around the lighting hasalmost a romantic feel to it. Not because there are reds and pinks but because there is beautiful amber glow that floods most of the outside walkway. As you walk through the Spectrum it almost has that midnight stroll in the park feel that we tried to emulate in one of our exercises.

As formy specific picture, I wanted to show how the designers can break up the space to show that there is something different or seasonal in a location. What we are looking at here is the lighting for the ice skating rink surrounded by the the lit palm trees and amber glow described above. In this picture we can see that the designer predominately used cool colors to light the overhang of the rink. This choice obviously connects to the fact that you are skating on something frozen. But what I think is really interesting about this compositionally is that it really sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the lighting that surrounds it and this choice to not blend is clearly the objective. The more obvious you can make this rink stand out the more people are going to stop by and pay to skate. One impressive thing I would like to point out is the intelligently lit palm in the center of the photo. The designer was able to bounce the striking blue off the palm tree so that people from far away could see that something was different over there.

The next picture is of a store that I cannot remember the name of. Truth be told the employees were looking at me funny so I had to take this shot from outside. But the lighting was so dismal that I had to get this shot. In this store they were selling higher end quality clothes and the lighting aspired to support that. This lighting largely failed to do so because it was sloppy and designed without much thought. I think the first thing you notice is the 5 very sharp pools of light above theclothes on the wall.The lighting designer was trying to make a cool effect with thelighting but because the lights are not even and there are not more of them that extend to the left, the composition seems unbalanced and sloppily executed. Another thing to point out in this picture is that there are some unattractive shadows on the wall. If you look at the clothes hanging on the rack in the wall, there are shadows on the floor and the wall. This lighting of the clothes busies the room in a way that is off putting. It almost looks messy even though the clothes are on the rack in an orderly fashion. In general this shop should think about maybe adding some more color and light in general. I also think if the specials were softened it would be more interesting to look at.

The photo I picked for good lighting is in Old Navy. Old Navy likes to sell clothes that are a little bit cheaper but still look nice. They kind of have a pre-packaged feel to them and I think the lighting supports this. The lighting in this store is a bit more industrial with clearly exposing the long florcents and making that part of what you see in the store. There is no hiding or shadows really it just feels clean and bright. This store really gets its job done. Wen you walk in you know what you are getting.

I also want to point out that Anthropologie spends a lot of effort in the design of their store in general. The lighting is very much a part of that. They want to make the consumer feel like they are at home in a very beautiful place. I also attached a picture of this because it is incredible how they use fixtures above supported by other light sources like chandeliers and lamp.