Platinum Winner 2024 – Architectural & Integrated Lighting Category – 520 West 28th - Architecture Collection
Platinum Winner of the Houzee Awards 2024

520 West 28th

Lighting
Architectural & Integrated Lighting
Completed / Built
Professional Category

Architect / Designer:

Zaha Hadid Architects

Studio:

Office for Visual Interaction, Inc. (OVI)

Design Team:

Lighting Design:
Office for Visual Interaction, Inc. (OVI): Jean Sundin; Enrique Peiniger; Markus Fuerderer; Rachel Barrow; Wendy Jiang
Zaha Hadid Architects: Johannes Schafelner

Copyright:

Hufton + Crow Photographers; Scott Frances Photography

Country:

United States

In Manhattan’s West Chelsea neighborhood, 520 West 28th features a fluid, dark metallic façade rising alongside the city’s iconic High Line. Offering stunning park views, this exclusive condominium includes 39 unique loft-like residences, elegantly distributed across 11 floors with ceiling heights of over 10 feet.
From the grand lobby to residences and amenities, light is crafted to absorb seamlessly into the building’s flowing form, highlighting its sweeping design and luxurious ambiance. It meticulously integrates custom fixtures that complement the fluid lines and organic shapes with light sources discreetly concealed within coves, recesses, and joinery. In the lobby, the dramatic lighting expression features signature bronze finished ceiling channels and concealed lighting elements to create and enhance abstract but serene spaces. While providing architectural coherence and overall illumination, the ceiling pattern strategically converges to intensify light where needed, accentuating distinctive focal points like the reception desk and carved stone feature wall. Lighting elements throughout highlight unique architectural features and residents’ art collections, accentuating key design characteristics. A layered lighting strategy within the residential units blends ambient, task, and accent lighting to enhance functionality and comfort. Bathrooms feature integrated cove lighting, eschewing decorative fixtures for a seamless appearance, while the kitchen and living areas showcase expressive decorative pendants to create focal points and provide contrast against the sleek modern white design. Dynamic lighting in the bedrooms offers flexibility for mood setting and can adjust throughout the day, enhancing the residential experience by mimicking natural light patterns and supporting circadian rhythms. Advanced lighting controls allow residents to personalize their lighting settings, including brightness, color temperature, and scheduling through smart home systems. The design prioritizes energy-efficient LED technology and sustainable practices, aligning with contemporary green building standards and reducing energy consumption. Amenities include a private theatre showcasing wooden ceilings illuminated with bands of light. An indoor swimming pool, situated beneath skylights, features lighting that highlights the unique rippled textures along its walls. Lighting of the plunge pool is integrated within ceiling coves to create a serene, cavern-like ambiance, as if the room is carved from stone and illuminated by the pool’s emanating glow. The thoughtfully integrated lighting design of 520 West 28th holistically translates throughout its spaces to create a fully immersive modern environment. This underscores the iconic architectural vision and prioritizes residents’ comfort and lifestyle, ensuring a living environment that is both visually stunning and highly functional, exemplifying the seamless blend of aesthetic innovation and functional elegance.

Office for Visual Interaction, Inc. (OVI)

At OVI, we are more than lighting designers–we are philosophers, storytellers and tailors who identify the essence of a project and craft our designs into vivid architectural icons. Our mission is to produce legacy-worthy masterpieces that radiate not just with light, but with rich narratives that thoroughly understand a project’s position in society and time. We see light as more than a tool; its interaction with surfaces and materials tells an emotional tale, providing depth and structure to a space.
OVI’s portfolio is vast and inclusive, from intimate installations to larger than life works–each approached with equal passion and humanity. The stories that shape our work advance the industry while honoring and echoing the ideas of the past, memorializing and progressing the quintessence of a place, a people, an era. With bold thinking and hidden logic, our integrated design solutions provide a sophisticated aesthetic, creating an iconic, emotional, and holistic expression of light.

We encourage designers and architects to share their best projects with the rest of the world so as to inspire the next generation and gain global recognition.