Las Vegas is well-known for its interiors. Thrill-seekers and business people alike travel to this city in the desert to be dazzled and delighted, and Beijing Noodle Company No. 9, a new dining experience at Harrah's Casino, does not disappoint. The restaurant, designed by Bergman Walls and Associates, wraps visitors in a dense cocoon of busy patterns and swirling fish tanks. The lighting scheme by Lighting Design Alliance plays an important role in reinforcing the interior's nearly all-white color palette while at the same time calling out points of color.
The restaurant's dizzying spectacle is achieved through layers of light. Metal screens cut in a custom pattern stand off of the walls and ceiling, both concealing and revealing a similar pattern painted on the surfaces behind. Warm white LED tapelights on the back of the screens emit an even luminescence that seeps into the dining room, providing 15 footcandles of ambient light. Set on a zero-to-10V dimmer, the LEDs can be adjusted for lunch and dinner settings. PAR20 halogen trackheads carefully located between the openings in the screen spotlight the tables and the fish tanks with an additional 50 footcandles, bringing out the vibrant orange-hue colors of the fish and table settings. Surface-mounted linear fluorescent striplights with 3000K T5 lamps also play a part in the design, uplighting the bar face at the back of the restaurant and food in the entry display kitchen, adding another layer of complexity to the giddy array of light and pattern.
Jury Comments
Jim Baney: The space literally wraps you in light; over-the-top and around the sides.
Mike Gehring: A real challenge to light such a wild space.
Sandra Stashik: Light filtering in through the lacy lattice produces a surreal environment for dining.
Manufacturers / Applications
Birchwood Lighting: Surface-mounted T5 linear fluorescent striplight
Lightolier: 100W PAR38 and 50W MR16 downlights
Jesco: LED low-profile tapelight and 20W halogen bi-pin decorative pendant
Juno: 50W PAR20 monopoint trackhead
