GRAANMARKT 13, Boutique, Restaurant & Gallery
Antwerp, Belgium
Design Practice – Vincent Van Duysen Architects

In Antwerp, Belgium, PSLab was offered the chance by Vincent Van Duysen architects to work on a unique boutique, restaurant and gallery space in a refurbished indoor market. PSLab’s distinctive creative practices produced a variety of reactions to the needs of the site and the client, using both standard products from their archive and original site-specific fixtures.

To light the staircase that connects the three areas (ground floor boutique, basement restaurant and first floor gallery), PSLab  used an installation of original antique car headlamps in various shapes and sizes, fitted with incandescent bulbs and attached strategically to the ceiling and walls.
Up in the boutique area, three outsize circular lamps and groups of projectors were mounted on the ceiling. Adapting to individual architectural features of the space, L-shaped lamps sprout from the central columns in small forests, with glowing rotatable tips. A wall punctured with large areas of glass demanded U-shaped fixtures to cling to the solid areas, and in the ceiling skylight, artificial streams of fluorescent light intersect the natural light from a set of exposed lamps.

In the ground floor gallery, PSLab created a massive, concentrated lighting element over the desk of the partitioned office space, contrasting it with a flexible set of parallel linear mounts for the lights in the main open space. Downstairs in the basement restaurant, the space’s two main columns became the bases for clusters of slender lamps; as ever in PSLab’s projects, one aspect or constraint of that particular space inspired the development of a unique new product.