A quick talk through St. Bartholomews Church design…

The Architect Howley Hayes brought us on board this project at the beginning of 2017. We worked closely with them to understand the history of the church and what the client wanted to achieve.

In the short video above Willie talks us through the concept which we’ve outlined below.

The brief was simple – to ensure people felt welcome in the church and to highlight the existing architecture but we also took our time to understand how the vicar, choir, and parishioners used the space.

So firstly we looked at highlighting the ceiling which was made up of dark wood beams that criss crossed the church. Behind these beams we discovered beautiful red and green painted “stripes”. We used projector fittings at either side of the church and angled these across each other to highlight the paintwork. We combined this with a narrow beam project at the base to highlight the height of the ceiling.

Projector fittings were used to also pick up the “seating area” this was a key factor for the client so the parishioners could comfortably read in the space.

We used lower-level lighting at both transepts. These were to be used for smaller sermons therefore needed more functional so they didn’t take from the main body of the church.

The altar area of the church was our main feature. It’s stunning architecture and murals just needed subtle hidden lighting to bring it alive. To create this we used a mixture of LED strip lighting and projector fittings to uplift the gold dome – it was was tricky. We needed to work out the right direction and outputs to ensure an even spread of light.

We’re very proud of this project turned out, it was also shortlisted for an RIAI award which was an added bonus.

Let us know what you think!