The latest collaboration between Woods Bagot and Qantas sees the completion of the Qantas Canberra lounges, within the new Canberra Airport Terminal. The long standing partnership has successfully evolved the look and feel of the established Qantas lounges that inherently reflect the Qantas brand.
“The vision was to create a lounge that caters for today’s requirements, yet can be easily adapted to expand and accommodate future passenger growth,” said Alison Webster, Executive Manager, Customer Experience, Qantas Airways.
Designed by Woods Bagot, the team have delivered a design vision introducing a new palette within the Business Lounge. The lounge incorporates custom designed furniture by David Caon and Woods Bagot, the new upholstery palette includes pure aniline leather, classic geometric textiles, sateen wool and a variety of rich textured upholstery from Maharam, Woven Image and Mokum. Travertine floors and signature elements such as Akira Isogawa designed wall textiles and feature lighting including the hanging pendants by Moooi, all add to the warmth and ambience of the space.
The Qantas Club is divided into two different zones -a light filled outlook to the runway and hills beyond, and an internal space housing the bar and buffet framed by layered timber walls and ceiling - custom feature lighting adds to the ambience of the space. The lounge is connected by the use of timber screening elements, which provide warmth and texture, and break the large space down to provide intimate seating settings within the lounge. The upholstery palette has been refreshed with crisp contemporary colours and patterns.
“The project provided an opportunity to create two distinct lounges, to evolve and freshen the Qantas Club look and feel as well as introduce a new palette and furniture to the Business Lounge. The planning of the lounges had to support the amenities provided for the customer and allow Qantas to grow and adapt the lounge for future customer needs,” said Tamara White, Associate, Woods Bagot.
The lounges provide a number of amenities, including shower and meeting room facilities. In addition to the lounge seating and communal dining tables, customers have the ability to touchdown at the internet or work benches or relax at the high bars. The lounges are designed to provide the customer choice and support their needs.
An established relationship, Qantas and Woods Bagot have worked together to deliver a number of lounges in destinations’ both within Australia and abroad including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Townsville, Darwin, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Auckland and Wellington.
Following on from a number of collaborations with Woods Bagot, Marc Newson and Qantas in their First Class and Business Lounges, PointOfView was engaged as specialist lighting design consultants for the Qantas Canberra Airport Lounges.
The Lounges are spaces used throughout day and night, the lighting of these spaces needs to change compliment the external environment. The lounges are fully glazed along one side and so daylight plays a large part during the daytime, PoV used ambient light sources to compliment the daylight enhancing the spaces and surfaces during the day.
At night accent lighting comes into play creating a more intimate environment; allowing customers to feel cocooned. This is crucial in an environment such as an airport where personal space is minimal, people rush around constantly clashing. The lounges provide a haven from that hustle and bustle. Lighting facilitates this at night by reducing ambient light and containing the customer’s attention to their immediate environment, integrated lighting adds a third layer of light to provide pockets at a human level.
Many lighting technologies are used throughout. Different light sources are used appropriately; each has its own merit. Everyone wants to use LED, clients and engineers alike, they certainly have their place, but they are not a wholesale solution. The good old halogen lamp still has its place, and if used appropriately rather than as a blanket of light, it can still be efficient. LEDs can still not achieve the quality of light that is achieved by a dimmed tungsten filament.
As always the coordination between PoV and Woods Bagot is essential to the delivery of this approach, ensuring the integration of light is seamless. The quality of the end result speaks volumes for the value brought through a team of consultants with the same goal and understanding of each others processes.