Devonshire Square is a modern business estate with a unique historical past. Close to London’s Liverpool Street station, a group of 18th-century buildings that were once the warehouses of the East India Company, now offers a rare glimpse of London’s surviving commercial heritage. Architects Fletcher Priest were engaged to improve the efficiency of the office spaces and encourage activity after working hours. They reconfigured the estate to include residential and retail spaces and covered the central courtyard to create an active public space for restaurants and alfresco dining. Recognising the importance that light would play in transforming the site, they suggested the appointment of Speirs + Major Associates to the design team.

The lighting had to support a number of strategic goals: to promote the estate as a business attraction; activate the site after working hours; highlight period features; and safeguard the original architecture. The estate’s general manager, Carsten Lund, explained: “We needed to raise our profile and attract more traffic – yet without compromising the character of the site in any way.” In order to encourage use of the estate after dark, light was used to reshape the space into something softer and more intimate. The challenge was to create a sense of comfort in a cavernous space overlooked by 18th century warehouses. Designer Andrew Howis said: “We were acutely aware that the Western Courtyard is dominated by these beautiful but slightly overbearing buildings. The role we played was to create a more human scale at ground level without interfering with the fabric of the buildings.”

As the courtyard was covered in a translucent ETFE roof, we decided to maintain the feeling of an outdoor space by creating the impression of a moonlit landscape. A theatrical wash of blue was applied across the courtyard floor, with the illusion reinforced by blue accent lighting of the roof structure. Leafy gobo projections were used around the trees to recreate the effect of light passing through the tree canopy. Contrasting against the blue, golden light was introduced at low level to evoke the appearance of firelight and encourage people to linger.

The warm lighting was carried through to the restaurant terrace, where custom designed pendants make the restaurants the focal point of the courtyard, providing the practical lighting for diners and lending a human scale to an otherwise lofty space. Little moments of discovery were added through effects such as the LED star field under the terrace, which is revealed only by the reflections in the pool below.