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i-Vision Lights Historic Courtyard Hotel
Architectural and feature lighting specialists i-Vision has supplied and installed a highly atmospheric lighting scheme at the Courtyard Hotel in Leixlip, just outside Dublin.
The beguiling building right on the banks of the River Liffey was Ireland’s first and original Guinness Brewery, back in 1756.
When its current owners The Moriarty Group acquired the site, they decided to transform it into an exclusive new hotel, taking advantage of its unique architecture and stunning location.
The 40-room Courtyard Hotel contains two top class restaurants and four bars, six conference suites and exterior seating for 1000 people. Loving care and attention has been paid to detail in the renovation of the old brewery, which has seen the sympathetic addition of a brand new hotel wing. From the outset, they realised that lighting was an essential ‘finishing’ factor, and vital to the overall aesthetics and feel of the environment.
Working with architect Eamonn McCann and interior designers Eileen Cogan and Bernadette Prior, the Courtyard’s general manager Gavin O’Shea was also involved in the early development of the lighting scheme idea.
They were then introduced to i-Vision’s Geoff Jones, who was brought in to advise on the design of the more specialist areas needing illumination, particularly the externals. With Ireland’s recent anti-smoking laws, exteriors have also taken on an additional significance in both social and business contexts.
Jones proposed a scheme to accentuate the natural beauty of the building and reaffirm the practical requirement that ‘outside’ was a pleasant space. He wanted to add a lively contemporary feel to the traditional backdrop.
The main courtyard entrance is wide, and at the back of the hotel. It contains raised covered ‘apres ski’ areas for sitting out in the winter, with a touch of Victorian style Dublin ‘street’ and a large water feature at one end. Jones specified twenty-two 1W LED fittings for each après ski area, which are embedded in the stonework and decking, pointing upwards.
The courtyard walls are lit with i-Vision colour changing Lumos 3 exterior down-lighters, mounted in the soffits all around the courtyard, illuminating the stone walls below.
For the entry areas into the hotel, bars and restaurant, Jones has used copper housed up and down-lighters either side of the door, complete with Lumos 3W LED fittings. Copper was chosen for its natural aging properties, so it blends into the stone.
The restaurant entrance door is glass fronted, and the glass on the first floor of the entrance area is uplit with a series of Lumos 600mm strips creating interesting reflections and refractions on the glass. There are also more 1W LEDs ensconced into the soffits.
The entrance into the courtyard is covered, so Jones recommended brick lights to brighten this up, complete with low energy lamps. The walls are down-washed with Lumos 100 RGB strips.
The river frontage and garden is overlooked by most of the rooms, so it was important to have this looking its best at night. It’s here that the two wings – old and new – of the hotel amalgamate, so Jones particularly wanted to integrate and connect both elements via lighting. He used the same fixtures, up-lighting both wings with 150W narrow beam units, complete with amber dichroic filters. The amber brings out the stonework of the old part and accentuates the elegant rendering of the new part.
The grassy area of the garden and the riverbank are lit with electric green MBI floods, separating them gently from the amber glow of the hotel.
Jones then lit two additional feature areas – the Hotel’s eight-sided tower, which can be clearly seen from the surrounding countryside and the executive suite balcony and Jacuzzi.
For the Tower he again chose Lumos 600 strips, placed at the base of the eight sides, which are highly effective. Below the tower, for the bridal suite balcony, he continued the fashion of down-lighters in the soffits, offset with some blue in-grounds in the balcony decking, shining upwards.
All the architectural lighting is controlled via two ESA 512 DMX units with two Lumos Touch remote packs. These each offer eight pre-set scenes, and link to a PC for programming. They were set according to the client’s brief.
Gavin O’Shea declared that they’re “Delighted” with the results of the lighting, “It’s the icing on the cake. It does everything we hoped and more, and the place would simply not be finished without it!”
9th February 2006
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