The latest in the worldwide roll-out of Nike retail venues is NikeTown Honolulu, a three-story, 31,000-sq.-ft. (2,790 sq. m) store in King Kalakaua Plaza in Honolulu. Designed by BOORA Architects of Portland, OR, and the Nike Retail Store Design group from Beaverton, OR, this NikeTown (the 11th in the chain) opened in February. Its lighting design is by Auerbach + Glasow of San Francisco.
NikeTown Honolulu's land and water themes celebrate the spirit of the challenging triathlon competition that takes place in the city. One of the most strenuous athletic competitions in the world, the triathlon combines a 2.4-mile (1.5km) ocean swim, a 112-mile (69km) bicycle race, and a 26.2-mile (16.2km) run. The store's design echoes the triathlon's connection to land and sea with a combination of different sports pavilions, or islands, connected by water, or transitional walkways that connect the pavilions. In addition, a terrazzo floor creates a blue and green map of the seas, with sand-colored areas representing land. Large fabric screens soar in from above like sails.
Auerbach + Glasow's principal lighting designer, Larry French, IALD, and David Orgish, project manager and lighting designer, played with the light to create the illusion of movement in the "water" of the walkways. "The light moves across your body when you walk through the circulation areas so there's an active nature to it," says Orgish, who notes that these two-story areas are the only places in the store outside of the entry area where colored light is used.
To create this sense of movement, ETC Source Four jr ellipsoidals project static patterns that symbolize water. The instruments are fitted with blue gel, currently Special FX Lighting Fade Not X Film to match Rosco 68, that will eventually be replaced with blue Devon glass filters. Pipe-mounted LSI metal-halide adjustable flood fixtures, metal louvers, and four-way barndoors are also used, along with fluorescent striplights under transparent glass sections of the floor in the transition areas between the merchandise sections. SuperVision surface-mounted edge-emitting fiber-optic lighting is also used in the ceiling of the water transition areas, with a 150W metal-halide lamp as the light source.
The dynamic entry area of the store is a south-facing glass wall with an interior rotunda that serves as a decompression zone from the outside. "There is hardly any lighting in here during the day when sunlight filters in," says French. "The space lets your eyes adjust downward before you step into the bright electric light of the pavilions." This three-story structure has a circular glass catwalk around its interior perimeter with MR-16 lamps lighting it from underneath.
On the inside of the entry wall is a large perforated metal cylinder with a two-story spinning triathlon sculpture in the center. The perforated metal, as seen through the exterior glass wall, serves as a scrim for a series of changing color washes that run at night. Fifteen wall-mounted aluminum-finish LSI PAR-56 fixtures with louvers, and 40 surface-mounted Elliptipar quartz wall washers with asymmetric specular aluminum reflectors, have red, green, and blue filters for the color mixing of this nighttime effect. The lighting cycles from transparent to opaque so that at times there is a solid wall of color seen from the outside of the store.
Additional fixtures in the entry area include a Bruck surface-mounted low-voltage conductor system with remote transformer, and recessed Prescolite low-voltage adjustable accent lights. The range of lamps as specified come primarily from GE, Philips, and Osram Sylvania. An ETC Unison system provides fully automated control run via a time clock function. Two full racks of ETC Sensor 2.4kW dimmers, located one each on the first and second floors of the store, are used. "The power is only 200A three-phase," French notes, so that the 192 dimmers are not loaded to full capacity.
"Although we came onto the job three months into construction, we tried to integrate the lighting into the overall design," says French. "We wanted to add playfulness and introduce distinctive elements into each of the separate pavilions." Ceilings made of concave and convex metal panels have surface-mounted single-circuit black Lightolier track (with black Lightolier accent fixtures fitted with MR-16 lamps) located in the slots between the panels. Other ceilings have wooden slats with the Lightolier track above and MR-16s peeking through the slats. In both instances, it appears that the lights are integrated into the ceiling. Using drawings from the ceiling manufacturers, the designers were able to see the exact elements they would be working with. "We knew exactly what would be installed. We were not dealing with ceiling concepts," says French.
The lighting design also creates negative space, or dark zones, in many of the pavilions. "We used 99% accent lighting," says French, who points out that there is no color in any of the lights on the merchandise. "There are a lot of peaks and valleys and a lot to look at. Your eye gets drawn around the space and there is a sense of motion and energy." This energy is supported by the audio design in the pavilions, which includes sound cues associated with different sports. Each pavilion also has its own ambiance, reinforced by the lighting design. "Each zone has a distinct identity," says French, who notes that the pavilions are often tied to Nike's star athletes, from Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods.
In the basketball pavilion for example, LSI MR-16 accent fixtures are hung on a system of curved aluminum Optikinetics Trilite triangular truss painted black and hung in circles. The theming includes a video loop whose soundtrack includes the squeak of basketball shoes on a wooden floor and the sound of the ball bouncing. Above the basketball zone is the golf pavilion, with a combination of recessed fixtures and a random pattern of stem-mounted adjustable MR-16s. "The ceiling pops up to create a drum in the center with a cove around the perimeter," says French. "The recessed fixtures are tucked up out of sight and the accents come dropping down in the middle."
The soccer pavilion, located in the back of the store, glows like a stadium at night to help attract people. The indirect lighting uses Belfer compact fluorescent striplights in a custom-designed cove that follows the crescent shape of the area. The soccer pavilion dressing rooms have surface wall-mounted two-lamp fluorescent fixtures from Shaper Lighting with matte white acrylic diffusers, polished chrome end caps, and integral solid-state electronic ballasts.
In the kids' area, design elements include a solar system of various sports balls, with lights twinkling like stars sprinkled among the planets. The "stars" are Bruck bi-pin halogen lamps attached to a low-voltage wire system with both opaque bulbs and clear ones, in which the filaments add to the sparkle. Lightolier track with Lightolier Geospot 10" drop-stem pendant-mounted incandescent black accent fixtures and Modular MR-16 accents are integrated into the ceiling panels. Once again, the color comes from the display units and the children's clothing rather than from the lighting.
French and Orgish based the lighting on requirements provided by Nike, and French made a survey of the lighting in the recently completed Boston NikeTown to check the light levels. "They wanted 100 vertical footcandles to light the merchandise very brightly," says Orgish, who describes the Honolulu store as "quite an exciting place, yet not frenetic. It is very technically charged with elements not normally found in retail, yet the architecture and the lighting design work together to create a sense of destination."
The destination is definitely Nike, with elements used in Nike product design blended into the retail experience. Air pillows incorporated in running shoes, for example, are found throughout the store in elevators, benches, and stair risers. This reinforces the role that design plays to both sell merchandise and tell the Nike story. The lighting design helps carry this story out of the store, onto the street, and into the outside world.
OWNER Nike, Inc. Tom Ancona, creative director; Grant Garner, lead project designer; Jerry Conduff, store design manager; Jack Lowe, project manager
ARCHITECT BOORA Architects Bud Oringdulph, AIA, principal, principal in charge; John Medvec, AIA, associate, project architect
ASSOCIATE ARCHITECT Luersen Lowrey Tsushima Michael Miki, director
ELECTRICAL ENGINEER Interface Engineering Don Sayachith, electrical designer; Scott Micucci, lighting electrical designer
LIGHTING DESIGNER Auerbach + Glasow Larry French, IALD, principal, principal in charge, lighting designer; David Orgish, lighting designer, project manager; Susan Porter, Yukiko Yoshida, Lily Tom, project team
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT HEERY International Fray Heath, construction manager
GENERAL CONTRACTOR Fletcher Pacific Construction
ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR A-1-Alectrician Walter Weatherwax, job superintendent
PARTIAL EQUIPMENT LIST Belfer surface-mounted tungsten halogen aluminum wall sconce with asymmetric specular reflector Belfer surface-mounted single-lamp compact fluorescent T5 curvable striplight with integral dimming ballast BK Lighting wall-mounted decorative sconce with remote 120V/12V transformer Bruck cable-mounted, low-voltage tungsten halogen fixture with gloss white glass globe diffuser Bruck cable-mounted, low-voltage MR-16 accent fixture Elliptipar J-Box-mounted fluted quartz uplight with asymmetric specular aluminum reflector and natural aluminum exterior finish Elliptipar surface canopy-mounted quartz wall washer with asymmetric specular aluminum reflector Elliptipar fluted quartz uplight with asymmetric specular aluminum reflector ETC Source Four jr pipe-mounted incandescent ellipsoidals ETC Unison lighting control system ETC Sensor 2.4kW dimmers GE, Philips, and Osram Sylvania lamps Glashutte Limburg surface ceiling mounted compact fluorescent decorative fixture with luminous glass diffuser Lightolier surface pendant mounted single-circuit black and white track Lightolier track-mounted incandescent black accent fixture Lightolier pendant-mounted compact fluorescent downlight Lightolier Geospot 10" drop stem extension pendant Litelab surface monopoint-mounted adjustable PAR-36 low-voltage black lampholder with integral magnetic transformer, and matte black cube cell louver Litelab weighted base-mounted adjustable PAR-36 low-voltage black lampholder with integral magnetic transformer and matte black cube cell louver LSI truss-mounted accent fixture LSI canopy-mounted PAR-56 uplights with glass filters LSI pipe-mounted metal-halide adjustable flood fixture, 1/2" cellular metal louver, and four-way barndoor LSI wall canopy-mounted PAR-38 fixture with louver Midwest surface-mounted white single-lamp 3' and 4' fluorescent strips Modular recessed adjustable four-lamp, low-voltage MR-16 accent lights Modular plug-in, low-voltage adjustable fixture with beam softening lens and hex cell louver, 4" mounting stem, with black finish Optikinetics circular and curved aluminum Trilite triangular truss Prescolite recessed compact fluorescent downlight with 6" aperture, with clear Alzak iridescence suppressed self trim cone with factory-painted white flange, vertical mounted lamp, and integral solid-state electronic ballast Prescolite recessed low voltage adjustable accent light with 4" aperture Reggiani semi-recessed adjustable downlight Shaper Lighting surface wall mounted two-lamp fluorescent fixture with matte white acrylic diffuser, polished chrome end caps, and integral solid-state electronic ballast Solite beam softening lens and hex cell louver Special FX Lighting Fade Not X Film SuperVision surface-mounted edge-emitting fiber-optic system Visa surface wall-mounted two-lamp fluorescent fixture with matte opal glass diffuser, chrome-plated die-cast aluminum end caps, and remote solid state electronic ballast