Wellesley Hotel, Knightsbridge, London

The Wellesley Hotel London is located alongside the Lanesborough Hotel and right by Hyde Park Corner. This is within central London and in one of the most upmarket and chic districts. The area is known as Knightsbridge and leads on to well-known shopping areas such as Kensington, Sloane Street and Chelsea. The area is full of restaurants and a large number of high end fashion outlets/boutiques.

Department stores such as Harrods are located close to here and the former home of Princess Diana, Kensington Palace, is just over a mile further west along Knightsbridge/Kensington High Street. Perhaps the most spectacular plus of this location is that the Wellesley Hotel sits between 2 parks, Hyde Park and Green Park. Hyde Park is a large open space with a central lake (with boats for hire) and gallery.

Until June 2010 the former office building was the Pizza on the Park restaurant. The hotel opened its doors in November 2012 with 36 bedrooms, all of which will be suites. The hotel is owned by Arab Investments’ City and Country Hotels, the interior designers are ‘Fox Linton’ and was developed by Rhimesong for some £36 million pounds.

It incorporates the Opal Restaurant with a twenty eight seat capacity. There is also the Crystal bar with live jazz music. The Cigar Terraces include the UK’s largest bespoke humidor. Pride of place with the largest suite in London with no less than 4 bedrooms, a private lift and views over Hyde Park. The hotels design marries contemporary and classic styles with a mix of the buildings 1920′s art deco past and a touch of modern glamour.

At the time of the design lighting a complete hotel with LED was still a relatively new concept and one which can be hard to achieve. Most clients are understandably shy of using new technology and they believe the up-front cost of the product will be too high and outweigh the energy reduction benefit. So when it does lighting was asked to deliver such a project with LED it was a chance to prove the doubters wrong.

The brief was to design the lighting for a 5 star hotel and to have wow factor with energy saving. The budget was limited and had been structured around a scheme with conventional light sources so we had to design it with the new technology but still be on budget. The areas to be lit were the main entrance, circulation areas, the bar, restaurant, the humidor, back of house, rooms to all levels and the exterior spaces, including building façade lighting.

The hotels interior design team had put together a stunning theme for the hotel which had a flavour of art deco but with a modern twist. The original façade of the building was to be kept as it was listed however everything behind was to be knocked down and rebuilt to a very high standard. The design team worked together to make sure all elements of the décor, lighting and electrical worked together and gave the most efficient and effective scheme for the project and was in keeping with the clients vision.

For the lighting design the first stage was to find a luminaire which mimicked the traditional halogen downlighters “look and feel” but was LED and gave the right performance along with a warm colour temperature and sufficient spread of light. One of the main issues with LED is that due to their nature, the beam is completely contained within the specified angle, so unless an optic or lens changes the beam distribution the cut off can be very sharp. This can be perfect if you want to create strong beams of light but if you are trying to mimic a conventional halogen downlight then the effect can be very harsh as you don’t get the soft fade away you would normally expect.

As the technology was still in its infancy at the time of specification finding the right product took a lot of research but eventually PhotonstarLED (a UK based manufacturer) was chosen as a company who could fulfil our design requirements. Their Laser, Ceiling Star and Tesla ranges gave us all the flexibility and lumen packages we needed for all areas which required this style of lighting. PhotonstarLED are a company who lead the way in LED and their luminaire lumen packages were superb and gave great luminous efficacy in a stylish and well-made product.

These LED products also had a nice warm 3000K colour temperature option so we were able to give the hotel that cosy feeling that Halogen gives and is almost expected in any hotel you visit. To save cost we were able to use one dimmable driver for two or more products and this also kept installation costs low. The energy saving against conventional lamps is around 80%.

For the decorative elements of the project cove lighting was required and this was sourced from Architainment who are a subsidiary of Philips Lighting. The cove lighting needed to be powerful to uplight decorative cove architectural details in the bar and restaurant areas along with some of the main suites. The client wanted more than just a subtle wash and required the lighting to act as soft uplighting to the space to create mood options and increase the feeling of height. 3000K was again used to keep the warm cosy feel to the space as this best suited the finishes from the interior designers.

Where table lamps and floor lamps were specified we used Philips dimmable GLS replacement LED lamps with a warm colour and that were suitable for dimming. These were from the Philips Master lamp range and gave around 70% energy savings against conventional GLS light sources without compromising on the flexibility and colour temperature.

The exterior spaces of the hotel also needed a creative but subtle design and these included the façade. The façade is listed so this needed to be approached with care and direct fixing of the luminaires was not possible. The client wanted the façade lit to highlight the hotels status and also to distinguish it from the other buildings in its locality. We decided to light the main structural features with small LED floods which sat between windows on each level. Here the LEDs sharp beam cut off became an advantage as it meant that spill light into bedroom windows was not an issue and kept the light exactly where it was required.

It was decided to add greater flexibility to the façade lighting by having dynamic RGB colour changing floods which would be run off of a DMX control system. The floods would change colour for special events like Festive occasions or National holidays and could if required be used for special functions at the hotel. The majority of the time however the lighting would be a neutral white to enhance the façade and be in keeping with the social standing of the hotel and its location.

The floods are supplied by LumenPulse who are a market leader in long life LED products and use a concept of twin chambers to extend their products life to 120000 hours. This means the hotel will not have to worry about replacement or maintenance for around 30 years which will save significantly on cyclical costs. It is also important as access is restricted for maintenance so the cost to change a luminaire using absailors or scaffolding would be very high and cause a lot of inconvenience to the hotel guests so this needed to be avoided at all costs.

The exterior of the hotel has two terraces which are covered and screened so they cannot be viewed from the road. These areas are to be used for refreshments during the day, supplementary bar seating and also for smoking areas. The hotel has the largest humidor in the country and cigar smoking was to be encouraged in this space as it cannot take place inside the hotel due to the UK smoking laws.

he lighting needed to be welcoming and sympathetic to the variety of uses along with maintaining the theme through the hotel of warm, inviting spaces. The terraces had a planted hedge screen which surrounded 3 sides of each one and these were lit from the base to add definition to the structure and texture to the planting. This was done with tiny LED spots which just sat at the base of the hedge and washed light up the foliage to show off the boundary and create a feeling of security from the outside world.

Overhead lighting was detailed as part of the scheme to give general illumination but had to avoid heaters and the struts of the structure which held up the fabric cover. It also couldn’t hang too low as it was not a high structure and the space was restricted with furniture and was expected to be a popular location for guests to use. In the end luminaires which were art deco in style were designed by BetaCalco to give a wash of light to all surfaces and add interest to the space. Similar luminaires were used on the entrance area to guide guests through the space and to give continuity of the theme from the moment guests arrived at the hotel entrance, through to reception, the public areas and finally to their rooms.

The back of house lighting was mainly fluorescent as this was the sensible choice for the space and the most cost effective for the non customer interfacing areas. The clean room luminaries for kitchen spaces were fluorescent as LED was at that time not easily obtainable for that product range. Office areas used recessed 600 x 600 fluorescent to keep costs down and give only functional lighting for the staffs day to day back of house activities.

The main spaces required some statement bespoke chandeliers and using LED as the basis for this was explored and utilised. PhotonstarLED were able to supply the basic light engines and then with the creative team they were worked into the chandelier design. This meant even these elements of the design were as energy effective as possible.

The lighting in the rooms was a combination of PhotonstarLED downlights and then table, floor and wall lights. The down-lighting provided general illumination for cleaners and functionality whilst the decorative lighting provided flexibility and atmosphere to the space.

These elements used the Philips Master LED lamps so we saved energy but still gave the traditional lighting atmosphere expected in a high end Hotel.

The bathrooms used LED again to give a functional light to the space and lighting around the mirror added direct lighting for the face so avoiding harsh shadows. Other options were explored for more decorative elements but due to budgets these were not pursued.

Finally we had the corridor areas to light. These proved troublesome as there were many services running through the ceiling and these left no usable ceiling void. Edge wall washing was eventually settled upon to create the right balance to the space. Tiny remote emergency luminaires were provided for the health and safety requirements to be met.

The design was well received by the client and the lighting (without Chandeliers, table and floor lamps which were from another budget) came in on time and on budget which was £165K. This was the only part of design process at the time which achieved this.

It does lighting was very proud to have worked on this beautiful and innovative project with the design team of Harley Haddow, Fox Linton, Brookfields and Arab Investments.

For further information about this project or others in our portfolio please contact us.