POV celebrate the Year of the Snake with lighting design at the new Man Tong Kitchen, Melbourne

Mark Elliott, the award winning Design Director of POV Lighting Design, shows the POV's work on Man Tong Kitchen, Melbourne. A contemporary lighting into an Asiatic atmosphere. The interior design project has been carried out by B.Y. Architects.

“We also created the lighting for Neil Perry's latest restaurant, Rosetta, which recently opened within the Crown complex,” said Mark Elliott. “It's interesting to see how different the lighting and ambiance is, from one project to the other. I’m proud of how precisely my team at POV focus on the individual character of each design project.”

Completed on 18th December for the Golden Age Group, the Man Tong interior is by B.Y. Architects, and follows a contemporary ideal of traditional Chinese style, with a very rich combination of materials and vibrant colour.

“Traditional dark stone, decorative oriental patterns, timber, red and gold touches mixed up with concrete finishes and modern glass tiles - these are the materials that B.Y. Architects gave us to play with” says Sara McClintock, senior lighting designer at POV. “The intention of the lighting is to accentuate this richness, and bring to life all the key finishes, artwork, furniture and decorative elements in the space.”

The base lighting finishes in the main dining areas are quite dark: The lighting plays with the dimmed aesthetic and increases contrasts, emphasizing reds, gold and timber to let these tones become the life of the space.

In contrast to the restaurant, the private areas have bright finishes and deliver a feel of openness and brightness, with indirect lighting and modern glass chandeliers. Mark Elliott and his team were sensitive to cultural differences: Chinese restaurants are traditionally much brighter spaces than restaurants in the West. In the private dining room they needed to meet the high light level requirements of a traditional Chinese banquet, while satisfying Western tastes for ambient light with high accents, drama and intimacy.

All areas are hung with a decorative pendant or a chandelier, and the fittings were chosen to reflect an antique traditional look with a strong contemporary nature, so as not to overpower the space. Feature lighting in the private dining rooms was carefully selected to communicate a subtle oriental feel in a contemporary idiom.

The central restaurant pendant is a bespoke piece designed specially by the POV team, in a variation of a traditional Chinese lantern. “We integrating the main tones of red and gold to relate to the interior as a whole” said Sara McClintock.

Established in 2002, B.Y. Architects is an award winning Melbourne-based architectural and interiors practice. They focus on quality boutique and niche market projects, working in close collaboration with clients and the project team. ‘The brief for the interior design was to create a warm yet dramatic space based on traditional Chinese teahouse themes,“ said Lisa Chan, Associate Director of B.Y. Architects. The literal translation of Man Tong is ‘full house’, so the intention for the interiors was to form a backdrop for a bustling space filled with food and chatter.

“POV were asked to design feature and architectural lighting to help achieve a sense of warmth and airiness to a variety of spaces. Up-lighting of the feature pitched ceiling in the main dining room was also important to show the volume of the space, with the insertion of custom-made oversized ‘lantern’ pendants helping to accentuate this,” said Chan.

POV thrive on creative collaboration, and recently completed The Darling Hotel and QT Hotel in Sydney, Revesby Workers’ Club, The Conservatory Restaurant, Rosetta, and Tori No Su Japanese Restaurant in Abu Dhabi with a number of outstanding decorators and stylists.

POV's full slate of upcoming projects includes The Four Seasons Hotel in New Delhi and Hotel Hotel in Canberra, due for completion in March 2013.

Source: PointofView

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