ORGATEC Exhibition Lighting
MUTE product exhibition lighting at Orgatec Fair
Cologne, Germany
In the ending of October of 2022, I had a pleasure to be involved in designing lighting for an exhibition booth for Mute.. for the Orgatec Cologne fair.
Invited through an amazing design studio UTUL living projektowanie wnętrz komercyjnych I was assigned to design cosy lighting of the 350m2 booth that will enrich the exhibited products characteristics. Mute products include acoustic meeting/conference pods, acoustic separation walls and lamps. The products are in rather bigger scale, where the key was to expose the materials or the construction details of the pods. Therefore I hade 3 lighting design tasks:
1. Lighting on the pods
2. Lighting on the curtain in the perimeter of the booth
3. Decorative lighting on the trees.
What is worth a mention is that MUTE products such as pods have incorporated lighting, therefore I was not involved in their interior lighting.
1. Lighting on the pods
The biggest challenge for me was to expose the best features of acoustic pods, so that the lighting doesn’t glare. I worked with 3000K and 2700K spots on track with adjustable zoom and dimming system. For Space pods collection I suspended tracks just above the pods corners to enhance their round feature, For Jetson pods a suspended barrisol ceiling was installed to give uniform lighting and modernized look. For the big conference pods I focused light spots on their particular elements, such as shelfs, corners or a perforated wall.
Space Pods
Space Pods lighting simulation
Jetson Pods
Jetson Pods lighting simulation
Conference Pods
Conference Pods lighting simulation
2. Lighting on the curtain
Another task was to light up the semi-translucent curtains suspended in the whole external parameter of the booth. I chose to go for dimmable led strip to obtain gradual light washing on the curtain fabric. Eventhough, this solution was not reusable, it gave uniform lighting on the curtain. This was particulary difficult taks to take decisions on, becouse I didnt have a chance to conduct any mocup on the actual material and had to follow my design gut.
Lighting on the curtain from the outside
Lighting on the curtain from the inside
Lighting on the curtain simulation
3. Decorative lighting on the trees
The big olives trees in the middle of the booth, definitely gave a wow factor. I decided to put light on them to enhance that factor even more. I focused spots from the truss down on the foliage and placed typical garden spots to uplight them from the bottom. This created unexpected light and shadow play of a tree-leaf patterns on the ceiling and floor- my personal favorite effect!
Leaf pattern on the floor
Leaf pattern on the ceiling
The whole project was really intense but fun. I was responsible for lighting design decisions, lighting calculations, contact with lighting manufactures, update of lighting plans and diagrammatic explanation of led tape installation and light control groups. I arrived to Cologne for 2-day buildup, where I could keep an eye of the build up process and focus the light spots as desired.
The end result was extremly proffesional. The booth was cosy and atmospheric- as in contrary to the regular super bright and flashy booths on an exhibition fairs.
The process:
The location: ORGATEC fair, Cologne, Germany
Client: Mute.
Booth design: UTUL
Spots lighting: Chors
Linear lighting: KLUŚ
Photo Credits: MUTE and Katarzyna Krawczuk
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