Interior Lighting Design
Babur Michelin Restaurant Beautiful Art Lighting

SMA design were approached by Babur a contemporary Indian restaurant in South East London. The Bengali restaurant is highly praised in both Michelin and The Good Food guides.

Babur’s owner has built up an enviable art collection from several established Indian artists. These unique artworks were on permanent display within the restaurant. However these significant pieces had been exposed to long periods of extreme heat, changeable humidity, high light and UV levels (light levels up to 3500 lumens were recorded) from both sunlight and halogen light sources.

SMA's lighting designers carried out a full lighting survey and report on how to improve the interior lighting design & environmental welfare of the art. Whilst also deliver a beautiful and energy efficient lighting solution for the entire Babur restaurant.

It was important to balance the welfare of the art whilst allowing diners to still see in and out of the restaurant, without visibly being aware of any changes. Various solar films were tested on the restaurant glass façade to find a suitable compromise. The window film finally adopted was able to reduce solar gain by 65%, 99.9% of harmful UV light and reduce the high lumen levels down to more acceptable levels. This same approach was also adopted at the rear of restaurant, where a large glass skylight created unpleasant glare and the build-up of unwanted heat, via solar gain. This area had become virtually unusable at certain times of the day.

Existing halogen lamps which were lighting the various art works and common areas around the restaurant, were replaced with museum quality 95% CRI, 2800 kelvin, LED lamps with various angled filters. These were controlled by programmable dimmers with scene settings for different times of the day an occasions.

Works for Kalamkar textile art included;

• Textile art removed from the existing wooden hanger, dry cleaned to remove any splinters and possible insect infestation.
• A new conservation backing material was sewn to the back of the art work for mounting on to a new inert forex board.
• The 12 year old display showcase was completely restored, off gased and sealed.
• The four halogen lamps which had previously lighted the art work were removed thereby stopping any further abuse to the artwork.
• External track lighting is now utilised providing a much better spread and controlled quality of light.
• The display showcase was also retro fitted with Prosorb cassettes (55% humidity) to keep the humidity level stable.
• Finally the display showcase was re-glazed with 10mm Low-iron glass to allow the art work to be viewed in its true colours.

These art works are on display at Babur for everyone to enjoy whilst they taste some of the best Bengali Indian food in South east London.

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