Galleria West Fashion Mall

UN Studio and Arup Lighting, both based in Amsterdam, teamed up to give Seoul’s Galleria West fashion mall a dazzling, Paco Rabannesque makeover. Concealing a nondescript 1970s concrete building is a layer of 4,330 frosted glass discs, shielding an equal number of LED luminaires. Each disc acts as a giant pixel; the building becomes a vast display screen. With Dutch company Xilver, Rogier van der Heide of Arup developed an RGB LED fixture that improves the color tone of the LEDs. The most common application of LEDs—many would argue to a fault—is in color-changing scenarios and as decorative details in a larger environment. “If I need a saturated color, I look to LEDs,” said lighting designer Jim Benya, principal of Benya Lighting Design in Tigard, Oregon, who is currently creating a midnight sky scene for a hospital MRI room with blue LEDs. Another lighting designer, Ken Douglas, principal of Illumination Arts in New Jersey, is embedding the light source into the façade of dark red brick building that lost its presence at night. “In our designs, we are using it mostly as a secondary aesthetic element, to add a little flavor or as a highlighting element,” he said.