SDAWARDS FINALIST: A botanical wonder by London Atelier

London Atelier are finalists in the Light & Surface Interior category in the Surface Design Awards 2017, and well-deservedly with their beautiful window display ‘The Herbarium’ for Crabtree & Evelyn.

The Crabtree & Evelyn store on Regent Street, London was part of the RIBA Regent Street Window Project and ‘The Herbarium’ was collaboratively designed by London Atelier and lighting designers Michael Grubb Studio.

A delicate combination of colourful and fascinating plants and flowers, tracing papers, copper and brass utensils, wooden surfaces of country kitchens and remedies, potions and cosmetic products were the inspiration for the project. This lead to a beautifully subtle display of a choreographed ensemble of herbs, plants and flowers preserved in panes of soap within a brass grid lit by an LED matrix.

A grid of 96 boxes or pigeon holes was made into 4 separate modules. 77 of these modules were caped with panes of soap with botanical compositions made from around 200 different species of plants common to English gardens cast into them. The piece is constructed from lightly stained plywood, frosted glass and brass angles that hold the soap panes in place and it rests on a plinth of 10mm steel.

It is lit using 77 linear runs of LED lights which are connected to a computer to create a subtle, organically animated and surprising lighting effect.  The lighting matrix responds to the movements of the passers-by and translates them into disturbances and ripples into general pattern.

Further credits; Manufacturing by Superbuilder & Co, Botanical Composition by Tina Tsang, LED lights by LED Linear UK and Photography & film by James Newton Photographs.