Minimalist Drama in London

The new offices of Gemcorp headquarters are located on the top floor of a new building on Queen Street. A charcoal gray MATCH, design by Jordi Vilardell and Meritxell Vidal, hangs over the reception desk in the entry at Gemcorp HQ, complementing the rich textures and noble materials used throughout the project to reflect the investment company’s focus: natural resources. Principal Tamara Muradova and her firm Archiproba used different configurations of the Match several times throughout the project, playing with color and angle to suit different parts of the program.

MATCH pendant, a bespoke lighting installation able to be created by design professionals at the manufacturer’s website, creates a sculptural presence without distracting from the décor. The lighting system is based on thin rods of aluminum and LED light terminals which forming a light sculpture that illuminates central themes of space and interior decoration. Hanging over reception as pictured, it provides ample ambient illumination to an otherwise dark space – each 3W LED provides 100 lumens.

The fixture acted like “a spider web enveloping the space, while at the same time remaining completely invisible,” says Muradova. “We specified white lamps that disappear in space from some angles.” Hewing to a stark black and white palette could have led to a drab workplace but the sharp horizontal lines give the space a minimalist drama.

The Match pendant is one of the few exceptions, adding a vertical detail to subtly punctuate several spaces. “We’ve been impressed by Match lights for a long time before the start of working on this project,” says Muradova. “I like that they are geometrically complicated but do not create a sense of complexity.”

Photos by Aleksei Kalabin. Courtesy of Archiproba