Prize(s) Honorable Mentions
Lighting Design/Product Company Within Light Studio
Lead Designers Mara Villegas
Other Designer's names Wes Burdett and Andres Trujillo
Architecture Company Stonehill Taylor
Interior Design Company Basile Studio
Client Lightstone Group
Photo Credits Henry Rose and Michael Kleinberg
Completion Date April 2023
Project Location Williamsburg, Brooklyn NY
Entry DescriptionNestled within the Moxy Williamsburg hotel in NYC, Mesiba is a standout restaurant that celebrates its Tel Aviv roots. Offering Levantine cuisine, Mesiba marries historical elegance with modern sophistication.
Our goal was to enhance the restaurant's Old World architecture, infusing the space with youthful energy and a warm inviting atmosphere. Guests are greeted by the view of the bar, where glowing glass shelving showcases the signature house liquor, Arak, and integrated millwork lighting accentuates the striking green marble finishes of the bar.
Continuing into the main dining room, double-height ceilings are adorned with elegant hanging pendants that form a visual canopy, while integrated linear lighting around the wainscoting of the banquette provides warmth and intimacy at the human-level.
The use of picture lights lends a residential look and feel to the artwork installation at the back dining area. Specialty 1.5” diameter adjustable downlights nestled in the arches accentuate passageways and decorative shelving.
Over the dining booths, track lights cast soft spotlights onto the tables supporting a comfortable guest experience for menu reading and engaging with the cuisine, while maintaining an overall intimate ambiance within the dining room.
The balance of architectural lighting and candlelit ambiance creates a space that is both enchanting and unforgettable.
Sustainability ApproachThe large windows of the Mesiba restaurant provide abundant natural light during the day. The space is so bright that we could keep many circuits off until the sun began to set, gradually turning them on as needed. By combining this approach with a lighting control system featuring an integral time-clock, we were able to dim the lights further as the night progressed, resulting in additional energy savings.
We also installed track lighting between the decorative fixtures to highlight the tables. This way, the task lighting isn’t reliant on the brightness of the decorative lights, allowing us to dim them to 50%-20% based on the time of day. The spotlights focus on the table surfaces can also be dimmed to around 15%-5%. This strategy has led to energy savings of 35% to 55% at different times throughout the day, optimizing our lighting while maintaining effective illumination.
