As one of Norway’s leading real estate companies took on the task of restoring the oldest part of Oslo Central Station, the multidisciplinary team of ÅF Lighting designed new and innovative lighting design for the indoor hall, commonly known as “Ø”.

ÅF Lighting designed a lighting project for the grand hall that respects the original architectural appearance, while still supporting the new interior design conducted by interior design company Mellbye Arkitekter.

The lighting design is well integrated in the architecture, with its effectful scenographic lighting standing out as one of the lighting trademarks of the hall, which attracts thousands of travellers each day.

Østbanehallen was built as Oslo’s first ever train station, with an opening towards the east which offered the morning travellers to travel “with the sun”. This was the basic conceptual idea “Sunrise”, which yet again let the morning sun fill the great hall as a mark to the start of a new day – or figuratively speaking, the start of a new journey.

In april 2015 VKR Holding opened the doors to VILLUM Window Collection Søborg, Denmark. This window museum is hosted in a building invented by Villum Kann Rasmus­sen himself, a VELKIN hall, which in 1945 became Denmarks first pre-fabricated modular system for industrial buildings. The north-facing shedlights throw a soft daylight into the exhibition, and form a fine and unpretentious framework for the exhibition of the old windows. Daylight and artificial light is an indispensable and deeply integrated part of the exhibition. A main concept of the exhibition is the so-called time tunnel, a three-dimensional timeline, located in the museum’s central axis. The visitors passes through the history of windows in a sequence of spaces that stages of light pouring through different historical windows - from the large stained glass windows in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris to today’s large energy windows. The time tunnel offers visitors a textural and sensory experience of the window’s importance for human access to light, air and views. Artificial lighting provides fine illusions of daylight/sunlight, since this light draws lit panels on the floor, walls and window frames. The lighting is the main element in relation to the dissemination of the exhibition’s message, as the light supports the narrative of the window as the light source .

Tower Hotel is located in the heart of Tampere. The highest in Finland, the 25-­story hotel is 88.5 meters high. 

The building complex consists of two interconnected parts; Old locomotion garages, which is protected by the National Board of Antiquities, and a modern hotel building. 

The old part was highlighted in very traditional and gentle way. Lighting opens views to interior and also leave room for exciting darkness. 

The idea for the upper part of the tower was also taken from the architecture as the building is characterized by the rhythm of steel elements. While the steel elements reflect the daylight in various cardinals in dark period, the media surface reflects artificial light, changing according weekdays, night and day times, seasons, festivals and national holidays – every hour lightshow (3min.) will serve a surprise for people. 

The vertical architectural facet is moving smoothly and slowly following the rhythm and colors of the upper Media Façade. The media facade has 360 degrees of visibility over the city and it is strong visual part of the dark time cityscape. 

In the design it was firmly stick to the idea to show only harmonic and abstract movement of light on the media surface as an everyday scene. The media facade draws the urban landscape harmoniously standing as a signal to the surrounding areas and enlivening the cityscape.

The decorative lighting installation, for a bridge construction by Fifuhvammsvegur that was built in the 80´s, was inaugurated in August 2015.  Design process initiated by the Municipality of Kopavogur Iceland allowed 4 months for design, mock-up and installation.  Design intent was to integrate the structure and link it´s identity with the commercial and residential landscape rising in its surroundings.   Catering to the by-passers, the design concept was to create a visual language related to calendar events using lighting and adaptable colour change as a form of communication.

By use of DALI addressable RGBW fixtures, integrated to the existing features of the structure, the lighting allows for a variety of scene settings for the illumination to speak a dynamic language.  One of the pre-set scenes produces dawn setting for the morning risers transferring into dusk setting upon home coming.  The decorative lighting is switched off during the night and day for energy and lifetime savings.  For special calendar events such as National Day, Christmas, Easter, Gay Pride and other unidentified happenings, the visual language refers to light colour toning per definition and is easily interchangeble.

In close collaboration with Municipality of Kopavogur, electrical contractor Rafgeisli, lighting system suppliers from Flurlampar and Johann Olafson, the design by EFLA has elevated the identity of the bridge structure as a link between the commercial and residential community with lighting colour language.

“The light leads into an integral whole, where daylight and artificial light interact through the various bodies of the buildings. The lighting reflects dynamics in the study environment, while offering a vivid exterior. The key words are purity, simplicity and delicacy. On a purposeful way, lighting designer managed to overcome the difficulties of the division in several contracts.”

The latest campus building at Lund University in the Southern Sweden. The building is used as a work and meeting place and as an education center between the different institutes. 3000 students and 400 employed meet daily.  The project consists of a new building of 7000 square meters and two older, one from 1917 and one from 1962, which have total renovated and merged to the new building, which has built a new building complex om appr. 17 000 square meters. 

The vision was to create a house for meetings between people. This has permeated the entire project, from architecture, interiors and lighting. The building has different types of study, auditoriums, offices, library, cafe and open spaces and lighting concept, which follows a red thread, contributes to a sense of wholeness. The light creates an optimal learning environment and facilitates orientation through the large building’s various parts. There are also a lot of technical qualities of light such as artificial daylight that enhances the room atmosphere and create a feeling of spaciousness.

Situated in the centre of Oslo at the sailing entrance to the capital, close to the City Hall and Aker Brygge,  Akershus Castle and Fortress is something special in regional and national context.

The lighting design gives this cultural heritage a dignified presentation as a special regional and national landmark as it should be. The light accentuates the fortress’ mystery and grandeur in a modest way. The fortress’ long extent and complex building structure is tied together in the overall night picture.

The light level is low on the hills surrounding the fortress, gradually increasing towards the walls of the bastions to a higher light level drawing attention to the main buildings of the castle. The two towers are given an even higher light level as they are the most important parts of the building construction and significant landmarks. The southern tower is given a faint blue light to catch the evening blue hour and make it last through the night.

The lighting design modulates the buildings' significance and is thus an important guideline which indicates the hierarchy between the various parts of the fortress, and emphasizes the fortress identity. The light on the hillside and the lower walls ensures that the entire building construction is perceivedas "grounded".

Lighting design: Erik Selmer Sivilarkitekt MNAL, Lysdesigner IALD

Project Owner: The Norwegian Defence Estates Agency

This lighting design is extremely close to perfect, and the client had the courage and determination to stick to a very high level of ambition.

The lighting strategy is developed based on the architectural visions, and design and lighting go hand in hand throughout. Thus, there is an exceptionally strong association between the architecture, functionality, and light. Both the main idea and the details are executed with a rare precision. There is no glare. They chosen light colors highlight materials, shapes and colors.

The blue light in the atrium of the building NN1 creates a nice contrast to the warmer light further down in the building, while associating to the blue sky light. The areas where lighting should be even are the impressive smooth. There is a structured approach to vertical and horizontal lighting, as well as created intimate zones with table lamps. There are no annoying reflections in the skylight, and the blue light is distributed extremely evenly.

The varying lighting scenarios in the cassette built skylights in building NN2 are very poetic. The light changes quietly with the diurnal and seasonal rhythms. The majority of lighting elements uses “state-of-the-art” technology with LED, and the use of it is stunningly successful. The lighting seems completely in line with Danish / Nordic lighting traditions and is experienced in all its subtleness completely incorporated into the architecture and function of an energy conscious and evocative way.

The underlying lighting strategy is communicated and well documented, and the results are fully in line with the intentions.There is no doubt that the strategy has been a valuable tool in the process and in maintaining the ideas.

The lighting designers on this project have mastered a full overview of methods and tools and used them convincingly, but in a pleasantly understated way that leaves room for many other impressions, and creates peace and wellbeing.

Didrichsen Art Museum is a unique combination of an art museum and a private home by the sea in Helsinki.

The museum arranges 2–3 temporary exhibitions per year.

The museum was opened to the public in 1965. The aim of the capital repairs was to update all technology in the building to the level of the 2020s.

For the general lighting of the rooms were planned 4000 K adjustable LED panels embedded in the ceiling.

For exhibition lighting of wall surfaces were planned a set of lighting tracks and targeted Dali spot lights.

For lighting of showcases was planned on small spot lights.

The lighting control system is as user-friendly as possible.

The control is based on the present/absent switch and preset levels.

Its control addressed lighting through a graphical interface andis measured elec-tricity consumption and lux-hours.

The lighting concept for the square focuses on creating a cultural and festive mood where different events and celebrations can take place. The lighting design also had to fulfil functional illumination and meet stringent energy efficiency requirement while providing a pleasant atmosphere during its everyday use.  

To achieve this concept a combination of decorative elements, precise optic luminaires and color dynamic features were used.  The color dynamic luminaires are controlled with an innovative system that allows the town authorities to play with light colors using their own smart devices.

“The interaction of environmental design and lighting is very successful” is written in the jury review for the project and “The lighting is the third dimension in this project and increases the experience and diversity of the area”

“A grey study environment underground has been turned radically by lighting design that creates daylight quality to all of the storeys. The result is a building of an excellent symbiosis of artificial light, daylight and a wolverine coloring. It is very impressing and demonstrates great knowledge and innovation.”

A lot of work has put on daylight analysis of the building which showed that a large part of the annex had no daylight and that the contrast between areas of light and the areas with no natural light was extremely high. 

The vision was to get the artificial light to interact with the daylight and the architecture and to respond to the different activities in the building. The lighting concept is designed to create a balance between the parts with a lot of daylight and the parts with no daylight. 

The light has been designed so that it is well integrated in the architecture and flexible to adapt to the needs of different users and to the different daylight conditions of days and a year. Illuminating vertical surfaces to reduce contrasts between lantern and dark parts of the building works great in this project and increase the use of the entire space.