Left: the dining salon
is a private space of
the circulation path,
forward of the salon.
Right and below:
more time was spent
on lighting than
on the décor
The light show
Stepping insideSeven, the most dramatic thing isn’t the furniture
or fabrics, it’s the lighting. The yacht won the Best Lighting Design
award at the 2018 Boat International Design and Innovation
Awards.Seven’s plan does more than illuminate; it follows
furniture contours to reinforce design, it draws the eye, it directs
attention and it soothes the soul. “Wespent probably three times
as long on the lighting design as we did on the décor,” says
architect Dante Benini. “For us as designers, light is the greatest
partner. You can transform all the spaces with light and control
the atmosphere day or night.” For Benini, light is not about
illumination of an isolated space; it has to take into consideration
the ambient light straying into the space. “If you want the look of
candlelight, you first have to copy what is going on outside and
use your lights to make the desired atmosphere.”
The unsung heroes ofSeven’s spectacular lighting are the Italian
audiovisual company Videoworks and its lighting engineering
team led by an artist who goes by the name of Leo.Sevenwas a
two-year project. “We studied the architect’s design philosophy.
We calculate the quantity of light that will be necessary, whether
for a task or for an emotional aspect. Then we determine how
best to deliver that quantity of light,” Leo says. Like artists, the
lighting engineer paints a picture, but they do it all with just two
“colors” – 2,070K for the warm tone in the strip lighting and
3,000K for the down or sidelighting. The trick, however, is in the
mix. Every light source is controllablefrom one to 100 percent
output. A logarithmic dimming curve matches human eye
sensitivity for subtle change. The control system uses both
a Lutron interface on a wall-mounted five-setting keypad and
an iPad interface for myriad scene variations. Each light gets
an address on a computer control board that is programed
to know what lights and at which percentage should respond
for preset scenes such as “gala,” “welcome” or “night.”