A Distinctive Ambience
Every Nando’s restaurant is designed to have its own distinctive ambience. Harrison Design have achieved this at the Newcastle Kingston Park restaurant by bringing together a variety of balanced and complementary features that take inspiration from Nando’s South African heritage. Nando’s is about designing beautiful spaces, whilst also supporting local communities, with minimum impact on the planet. This includes the furnishings, floor surfaces, wall coverings and, crucially, warm and welcoming lighting.
For the Kingston Park restaurant Harrison specified a bespoke light sculpture, made by Mash T Design, to run along the front window – as a shade from the sun – that transforms into a statement light in the far corner. The vibrant and eclectic lighting feature takes centre stage and enhances the overall atmosphere.
Each strand has around 5 hand-tied knots that were then individually measured, numbered and hung to form the overall feature. The sculpture includes 10 bead pattern variations in colour and size, requiring complex calculations for the curve and repetition. It was built in Mash T studios in South Africa and sent with assembly instructions to the UK for installation.
Thabisa Mjo is a Johannesburg lighting designer whose work draws from her South African roots. In 2015, Mjo impulsively entered the fixtures into the Nando’s restaurant chain’s Hot Young Designer Talent Search and won the chance to create a lighting design that is now used in restaurants around the world. Mjo has since found fans in more rarefied circles as well. The Louvre’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs has made two of her works, a Tutu light and the Mjojo cabinet, part of its permanent collection.
