INTtalk: Light Defines Color, Light Defines Time with June Park

We believe light is a unique medium which transforms our physical and emotional experience. We’d like to introduce two major feature lighting elements we focused on during the design collaboration of HBF NYC Showroom: central skylight at the atrium and dynamic white LED back-lit ceiling at the textile library.

Back in the 2003 Fall Semester, Tania Chau and June Park first met in the classroom at Pratt Studio. After 20 years, these former classmates became design professionals and reunited at a dusty construction site on a 6th floor in one of the buildings on Fifth Avenue near Flatiron to kick-off a design project together. One as an interior designer, one as a lighting designer.

In May 2023, HBF. The forty year old company mostly known for producing textiles and furniture opened a new showroom in Flatiron district.  The renovation of the sixth floor interior design and lighting design was performed by two Pratt Interior Design Alumni- Tania Chau (Interior Design, Director of ALA Studio) and June Park (Lighting Design, Visiting Assistant Professor of Interior Design). This reunion & collaboration happened when Mrs.Chau invited Mrs. Park to the project team back in June 2022. The Vice President and General Manager of HBF selected New York City-based, certified minority and women-owned Alda Ly Architecture (ALA) to design the space that blends the best of contemporary hospitality and workplace thinking.

At the center of the 1,500 SF display & working space with high ceiling, a historical large central skylight with surrounding columns were restored. We immediately thought about how we can provide a supplement of daylight to keep the sense of openness coming from the large skylight during the day to provide a smooth transition of day and night, light from dark.

As a textile company, the owner wanted to create a high quality textile library in the alcove space with flexible lighting solutions. For the various color spectrum of textiles, we designed a wall to wall stretch fabric ceiling with a dynamic white LED light panel above for the best quality of light. Light color can be adjusted from warm white to cool white based on the color of fabric. Light coming through the translucent fabric ceiling provides uniform, diffused and shadowless illumination.

June Park, Visiting Assistant Professor has been teaching Interior Lighting at Pratt Institute Interior Design since Fall 2017. She is also NYC based full-time architectural lighting designer with 15+ years experience. Her projects range from corporate offices to high-end retails to multi-family residential buildings.

June’s very first interest for lighting design ignited from Lighting Design class she took on her first Graduate Interior Design program at Pratt with Professor Jim Conti. Since then, she has grown passionate about becoming an architectural lighting designer. After a few years of working as an interior designer for a corporate office, she decided to pursue a second Master’s degree in Lighting Design at Parsons’ School of Design.

As a former Interior Designer, her main interests in lighting design is how light, color and surface interact with each other shaping our perception of the built environment.

HBF NYC Showroom Website

https://www.hbf.com/about/showrooms