This is not a ‘showroom’ in the traditional sense - though its intention is very much to showcase the latest lamp innovations from the company - but more of an interactive experience, hence the name ‘Osram Light Experience’. Stretching across over 200sq.m and incorporating a café, light studio and auditorium, the venue can work as a single space or be split into two areas by a ‘light wall’, allowing different groups to visit the studio simultaneously.
It is clear that the design team from Furneaux Stewart, led by Jane Huggins and Keith Feeney, understood Osram’s brief for something out of the ordinary all too well, and have applied their experience to demonstrating the full creative potential of Osram’s lighting, based on applications and visual demonstrations.
As a result, the light studio features five totem-style displays designed by the Furneaux Stewart team and positioned within the studio to encourage visitors to interact with the products. These totems - covering Osram’s Halogen, Fluorescent, High Intensity Discharge, Photo Optic and Automotive lighting - together with the various panels around the studio, address all the issues that consumers and specifiers care about, including lamplife, heat properties, colour temperature and light quality.
For instance, the Halogen Totem, with Osram’s new Halopin lamp at its centre, succinctly demonstrates the trend towards miniaturisation in mains voltage halogen. The same display also features a Halotronic Mouse interface demonstrating the comparative heat distribution of different halogen lamp types.
The nearby High Intensity Discharge Totem focuses on Osram’s Powerstar HQI. Using a Pepper’s Ghost technique, and images of Huddersfield’s McAlpine stadium, visitors get a graphic demonstration of lamp technology being used to mimic daylight conditions at night-time.
These are just some of the many clever, but very simple, touches. Further product-based panels are integrated into the wall system, which shapes the overall graphic look of the studio. Within this are two rows of five portals offering an immediate comparison of the different colour rendering properties of Osram’s fluorescent range.
A stainless steel frame balustrade, supporting custom-made LED edge-lit panels featuring technical icons that glow in the ‘Osram’ blue, provides the link to the café area. Here, a small lighting rig, supplied by Lighting Technology, features a range of fixtures - ARRI and Martin Professional amongst them - which use Osram lamps.
For a company that has well over 2,000 different light sources, the temptation to try and communicate everything in the range must have been overwhelming, but to Osram’s credit its approach has been deliberately restrained and the display works all the better for it. Likewise, the temptation to stray into ‘museum piece‘ territory has similarly been resisted and the focus is very much on the future, an approach underlined by the displays dedicated to new technologies where the potential applications for the company’s new Endura fluorescent lamp and its range of LED modules are clearly evidenced.
If you’re interested in lamps - their evolution and their application - then next time you’re on the M4 or M40, take a detour to Langley. It’ll be an experience.
