Completed project
Alpine Spa: ten thousand square metres between sky and water
A project by Mkv Design of London, on the Bürgenstock cliff looking over Lake Lucerne, inside the resort Katara Hospitality reopened in 2017. The light is ours: clusters of glass drops, filament globes and backlit mirrors.
Project data
A wood hung from the ceiling, made of branches and glass
The spa sits on a cliff five hundred metres above Lake Lucerne, and the architecture is all local timber and stone. A crystal chandelier in there would have been an object that arrived from somewhere else.
The answer is a cluster of glass drops hung from a structure of bleached branches: the drops hang at different heights and form no regular figure. From below you do not read a fitting — you read the wood you can see through the windows, brought inside.
It is the hardest piece in the whole project to make, for a reason nobody sees: the irregularity has to be drawn. A genuinely random cluster comes out unbalanced; one that looks random has every drop at a decided height.
The reception desk, and the light that sits above it
In the hall the cluster stretches out: the same family, laid along the marble desk instead of gathered at one point.
The reason is the shape of the desk. A round fitting over a long top lights the centre and leaves both ends in shadow, and that is exactly where the people handing you the key are standing.
In the bathrooms the mirror is the fitting
There are no wall lights in the bathrooms: there is a backlit circular mirror, hung on a strap like a piece of saddlery.
The light comes out of the edge and lands on the wall behind, not on your face: it is the right way to light someone looking at themselves. A lamp in front of a mirror dazzles; a light behind a mirror draws.
And the strap is not a flourish: it holds the mirror off the wall, and that gap is the space the light comes out of.
Eight fittings, photographed on site
Photographs from October 2017 and January 2018: the protection sheets are still there, and they show.
Real branches, real drops
The structure is made of bleached branches, and the glass drops hang at different heights: from below you do not read a fitting, you read a wood seen from inside.
Against the glazing, by day
By day the drops are not lit: they take the light coming through the glazing and give it back. A fitting that works switched off is one fitting more.
The filament is meant to show
The globe is smoked glass and the bulb stays visible: the source makes the drawing, the shade is not there to hide it.
Still behind the sheet
These are site photographs: the globe is mounted and lit, but the protection sheet is still behind it. You test before the room is finished, not after.
A ring, and the wall stays clear
The ring wall light throws towards the wall and towards the room: no arm sticking out, no cast shadow on the timber.
Rings under the beams
In the restaurant the ceiling has exposed beams: a solid fitting would have hidden them, and a ring lets them come through.
The lobby drums
In the lobby the choice is the opposite: closed fabric drums, making volume on a high, uniform ceiling.
Three arms, three discs
In the rooms a three-arm ceiling fitting with metal discs: the light goes to the ceiling and comes back diffused, never pointing into the eyes of anyone in bed.
We did the Waldhotel in the same resort
One hundred and thirty-seven rooms with hand-applied pleated shades, for the medical and wellbeing hotel designed by Matteo Thun.