Tudors to Windsors: Royal British Portraits at the Maritime Museum now open

Our latest project: Royal British Portraits: Tudors to Windsors at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has opened to very positive reviews. The Evening Standard‘s reviewer gave the exhibition four stars and described it as an unsurpassed way of conveying what actually happened over half a millennium, which is quite a feat for a single exhibition. The space has been thoughtfully divided into spaces for each of the major royal dynasties that have shaped our history from the Tudors to our present royal family, the Windsors.

The Royal Central website described the experience as carefully curated & beautifully displayed, with lighting that is soft and unobtrusive: quite a complex task when were faced with monumental works such as the iconic portrait of Queen Victoria in full Empire pomp that occupied an entire wall, down to the tiniest of portrait miniatures, carried across Europe to contract royal marriages as a diplomatic tool as much as a love match.

Due to the sensitive nature of many of the works, including the most fragile of early photographic prints and miniatures painted on playing cards, our biggest challenge was to create a lighting environment that could give each piece an equal weight and clarity despite the enormous range of sizes, materials, colours and even framing in use throughout the exhibition: this included lighting a light box to assist in viewing contrast and coping with the most reflective of modern photographic prints that we have yet encountered.

Each section of the exhibition was given its own colour theme to give a visual key to the changes of dynasty, and as each colour responded to light in a different way, we had to carefully balance each section so that the visual appearance remained consistent while keeping the light levels to conservation-suitable levels; the full range of the museum’s lighting stock was pressed into service for the scheme and to protect some of the most delicate miniatures, a responsive lighting system was developed for two key display cases that respond to visitor presence, so that the miniatures are only lit when necessary.

DHA Designs wins at Lighting Design Awards

We were delighted that our scheme for NEX Architects-designed Royal Wharf Pier in London has won the Best Public Realm Lighting Project award at the 2020 Lighting Design Awards.

We managed to beat some remarkable projects in the UK and worldwide to win this, so this was a great accolade for the scheme designed by Des O’Donovan. We had already been shortlisted in the Darc Awards for this project earlier in the year.

The scheme had to respond to the location, the use of materials, other river users & of course users of the pier to create a single, dramatic scheme that pulled all of these elements & requirements together into a fully-integrated whole.

Thank you to our suppliers (LEDLinear, iGuzzini) & collaborators who helped make this happen, and to NEX for their beautiful architectural response to the river.

We have a great track record with working with the NEX team: our previous collaboration was the remarkable Vardo Restaurant in Duke of York’s Square, London: here our lighting was shortlisted in the 2020 Restaurant & Bar Design Awards.

Tantra Exhibition at The British Museum

DHA have recently completed work on the British Museum’s latest exhibition – Tantra: enlightenment to revolution.

The show explores ‘the radical force that transformed the religious, cultural and political landscape of India and beyond’.

It is open from 24th September 2020 – 24th January 2021.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/tantra-enlightenment-revolution

The Box, Plymouth

Adam and Will have just completed the first round of lighting commissioning for Plymouth’s new city museum, The Box, designed by Event.
Paul Simson and Rob Woodley from Enliten provided tech support, along with Cliffe Tribe (the lighting commissioner).
We were greatly assisted by the brilliant team at CPE, Denis, Charlie, Del and Chris.

https://www.theboxplymouth.com

Vardo shortlisted for 2020 Restaurant & Bar Design Awards.

We’re delighted that our project for Nex Architecture: the striking Vardo restaurant in Chelsea, has been shortlisted in the best lighting category at the 2020 Restaurant & Bar Design Awards. The restaurant is notable for its dynamic, curved glass walls that are fully retractable in good weather: on fine days, the restaurant becomes fully integrated with the surrounding landscape, while at night, the glass becomes a surface for an interplay of reflection and tantalising views of the glowing interior.

We featured in the Awards in 2017, when our work on Eneko for Casson Mann was rewarded in the Best restaurant in a hotel category.

Good luck to al the shortlisted projects, and we look forward to the announcement of the winners early in October – virtually this year, but exciting all the same!