Short but powerful, this was our assignment at VM Tegels (VM Tiles) in Oostkamp. The tile shop uses different spaces where you, as a visitor, step into a different interior and living environment as you walk around. This makes it easy for the customer to imagine what a particular tile will look like in its specific home environment. To create the rustic, sleek, rural, etc. atmosphere VM wanted to use the power of lighting. As it was a showroom, the CRI value was one of our priorities. This value indicates how accurately a light source represents its surroundings. Daylight has a maximum value of 100. For the lamps at VM Tegels, we opted for 95. In terms of colour temperature, we also tried to make the look of the tiles as truthful as possible and opted for 3000 Kelvin.
General lighting
We opted for two types of general lighting. On the one hand, there are rails with our Mero-spot with a Citizen LED module of 230v (volts) and 2000 lm (lumen). These are easy to move so that the showroom can easily be redesigned quickly. On the other hand, we decided to work with built-in LED strips in the entrance and the tile garden. We incorporated these into the plaster and the plasterboard respectively because the two spaces merge so seamlessly into one another. We reinforced this by placing the strips randomly, yet always in parallel.The eye-catcher: Times frames
In the loft, the large open space where you have a view of both the ground floor and the first floor, we provided top-notch: Times frames. These can change colour, both automatically and manually. In this way, you can use the right lighting mood for every event or exhibition. And there is more: the frames can shine up/down. One of the possible colours is, of course, the VM Tegels house style colour: red.Office lighting
When you work with office lighting, the practicality weighs even more heavily. You want a strong but pleasant light source at all times. For the VM Tegels offices, we, therefore, moved our Luxors forward. These are square or rectangular recessed spotlights with a Xicato LED module. Moreover, office spaces are often lit from early in the morning until late in the evening. The high-quality Xicato is, therefore, extremely suitable for just those long burning hours. We worked the rails into the plasterboard, so they subtly merge into the room. In the office of the Managing Director, Thibaut Vanhollebeke, we once again applied the red company colour in our Pivot flush-mounted spotlights. As a matter of fact, you can see these beautiful red inner sides from the ground floor, which gives a nice effect.The exhibition space
Since each showroom interior had to radiate a different atmosphere, we opted for a different way of lighting each time. For example, our Mobys, Maestros and Tubos were used, but we also worked with simple but stylish floor lamps to create a real homely atmosphere. In some sections, we even worked with gold leaf to emphasise the exclusivity of the tiles. To conclude, with LED strips, we managed to put a subtle accent on the right places. We were able to highlight the stylish staircases, alcoves and cupboards, as well as create a luminous ceiling in the basement without the use of light fixtures.After all those nice eye-catchers, there is one more element we have not yet highlighted. We wanted to greet the VM Tegels customers from the outside and then subtly lead them inside. In order to achieve this effect, we chose to place light lines outside in the gallery, which we extended all the way inside. In this way, the transition from outside to inside is minimal and we show the customer the way in, as it were.
Does this project give you inspiration for your own lighting plans? Please feel free to contact us!
