Prestige car sales rooms present lighting designers with a particularly difficult challenge. While sparkle and drama are welcome, the vehicles’ highly-polished, curving metal and glass can create glare and unpredictable reflections, which are made all the more of a problem when cars are moved.

Remote Controlled Lighting is frequently specified in situations where high ceilings and the need for flexible lighting and pinpoint accuracy are vital. RCL’s remote controlled luminaires can be adjusted and focused from floor level using a simple handheld wireless controller or its award-winning iDirect app, which eliminates the need for ladders or scaffolding. They are also specially designed to throw light accurately over long distances and lock so that they do not drift.

The Mercedes-Benz showroom is glass-fronted on three sides and features a double-height interior which meant Kardorff Ingenieure’s scheme had to work doubly hard to ensure visual comfort within, while avoiding dazzling passers-by outside. To combat this issue, 60 remote controlled DR8 spotlights were installed in pairs in special ceiling troughs in the showroom area. The compact design of the DR8 ensured full pan and tilt movement while maintaining a minimum profile. Kardorff Ingenieure also specified RCL DR7 spotlights for areas such as the reception and conference spaces.

“RCL’s remote controlled luminaires are ideal for spaces where you would have trouble maneuvering a ladder around high-value or delicate items and you have to minimize disruption,” RCL’s Head of Sales, David Anderson explained. “They are ideal for vehicle showrooms but are also widely used in galleries and museums as well as the hospitality sector where spaces often have to be reconfigured for different uses.”

RCL’s patented system allows the showroom spotlights to be accurately controlled in both pan and tilt, enabling staff to accentuate features on a vehicle or highlight graphics even when they are repositioned. iDirect provides similar functionality, with movement controlled by simple, intuitive gestures using the system’s innovative Gesture Pad. The iPad-based app also allows the user to set up or recall scenes easily. As well as reducing setup time, both control methods reduce risk of damage to valuable items and help to minimize costs.

The showroom also has a LED wall that simultaneously serves as a high-definition multimedia screen, and the Gewers & Pudewill-designed tower’s facade is lit with linear LED lamps. Kardorff Ingenieure also designed the lighting for the building’s office space housing 1,200 employees and a restaurant as well as the impressive vehicle showroom.

RCL have also supplied lighting to a number of other showrooms across the world. Notable projects include the Monza Ferrari showroom in Ghent and, more recently, the Porsche Autostadt Pavillon in Wolfsburg, Germany.