RICOMAN Lighting Illuminates Rockfon’s Showroom in Clerkenwell

Showroom lighting for Rockfon, Clerkenwell

Rockfon manufacture acoustic ceiling systems. When they opened a showroom on St John Street in Clerkenwell, they asked Ricoman to light it, having seen our products at the Workspace Design Show earlier that year.

The lighting requirement

Showroom lighting has one job: make the product look right. That was more demanding than usual here, because Rockfon’s product is the ceiling itself.

Most lighting is designed to sit in a ceiling without much thought for how the ceiling looks. In this space the ceiling was the thing visitors had come to see, so the lighting had to reveal its texture and finish while staying visually quiet. Anything that drew attention to itself, or threw hard shadows and hot spots across a ceiling tile, would have worked against the product on display.

The showroom also has to work as a place where specifiers hold conversations and make decisions, so it needed comfortable working light, not just display lighting.

The showroom lighting scheme

Aeroline as concealed uplight. Used out of sight to wash light upward onto the ceiling. This is what does the real work in the space, lifting the ceiling surface and showing its texture without any visible fitting to distract from it.

Recessed E-Pro downlights. Set into the ceiling plane so the aperture reads as part of the ceiling detail rather than an interruption, providing the general light levels the space needs.

Kontor free-standing direct and indirect. A floor-standing luminaire, so it needed no ceiling penetration at all. In a showroom where the ceiling is the exhibit, being able to add light without cutting into it is genuinely useful, and the indirect component adds to the overall wash.

Pulsar Lite spotlights. Used to pick out specific displays and product samples, giving the accent that stops a showroom reading flat.

Everything was specified in a clean white finish, so the fittings sit quietly against the ceiling rather than competing with it.

The result

Rockfon gave glowing feedback and went on to specify Ricoman lighting for their Training Centre as well.