Top: Philips Lighting employees walking under the canopy of lights designed by LAVA. Bottom: A small group of employees hold a meeting under the lights. (All photos courtesy of Jonathan Andrew)

LAVA’s design for the new Philips Lighting Headquarters features an experiential welcome in the atrium and office spaces that foster creativity. 

Two women conversing under the interactive light installation seen from different angles.

Visitors are greeted by a huge parametrically designed interactive light ‘tree’, a sculpture of light containing 1,500 ‘leaves’, panels suspended from the ceiling. Reflective surfaces create a play of light and shadow. The concept is of golden light filtering through trees. 

Top: The lighting installation is consisted of 1,500 panels. Bottom: A close up of individual lighting panels.

Light was used for information, visualization, emotion and enabling. LAVA not only showcases the latest lighting technology – the sculpture gives shape and visibility to light. Light is the tool to create a volume of space.

Top: A sketch of the lighting installation design. Bottom: The lighting installation is on a fairly large scale covering 10,700 square meters of Philips Lighting's headquarters in Netherlands.

LAVA used intelligent light control to generate different scenarios that activate or relax users - every panel is programmed for the whole calendar year, a bit like an ecosystem, with light effects turning golden, for example, when meetings are in progress. 

The offices were designed to encourage informal ‘accidental’ interactions, a key enhancer of success in R&D businesses. Special environments were created for different work situations – from concentration to communication, activation to relaxation.