Grande Cheese Home Office and Research Center

Lead Designers Paul Zaferiou, Amber Hepner

Entry Description

Transparency was a key design feature in the home office and research center for the Grande Cheese Company. The glass walls of each area visually dissolve barriers between visitors and daily operations in cheese-making, but also promote interaction between employees of various departments. Since the views to the exterior landscape and inner courtyard are the primary visual drivers, the electric lighting was designed to unobtrusively support natural lighting during daylight hours, but to also promote transparency during early evening hours. Decorative lighting was carefully selected and located to add visual sparkle to the soft washes of electric lighting and daylighting. Each string of crisscrossing catenary lighting in the courtyard was individually programmed to highlight plantings and objects with different intensities, based on the season of the year. The lighting is all LED and dimmable, based on function, or automatically controlled, based on daylight availability or occupancy.