Holiday Inn Express
Wales, United Kingdom
A limited-service hotel is judged on two things: how it reads from the road at dusk, and how well someone sleeps in it. The lighting has to serve both on a tight budget, and the scheme here does it by repeating one fitting rather than specifying a different one for every elevation — a single compact floodlight shapes the wash on the porte-cochère, the terrace and the entrance façade, so the building is recognisable from a distance and maintainable with one spare on the shelf. Everything else is deliberately plain and hard-wearing: diffuse-faced downlights in the canopy soffits, an IP65 batten over the terrace door, bollards along the approach, and a concealed cove behind the headboard in the bedrooms.
Porte-cochère
One Blue, Carried Across the Building
The colour is the first thing a guest registers, before the sign is legible, and it has to be the same on the piers here, on the terrace and on the entrance round the front. RL-FL5223 is the fitting that shapes it: a compact outdoor floodlight with an adjustable head and beam angles from 5° to 90°, aimed up the stone rather than run along it, which is how a masonry face gets an even wash instead of a bright band at the top. Worth being precise, because the datasheet matters more than the render: RL-FL5223 is a white luminaire at 3000K, 4000K or 6500K. Colour on a façade comes from RL-BLW, the range's RGBW tape on DMX512, and it is the one position in this scheme where a component rather than a luminaire is the only option. RL-DL1601 lights the ground under the canopy — a plain round downlight with a diffused face rather than a deep anti-glare cup, because these apertures are meant to read as soft and lit rather than disappear into the soffit. RL-WL-LED-OP marks the doors, a square opal block in a dark surround at eye level. RL-BL3292 picks up the path at knee height, with the aperture angled down at the paving so nothing shines back at someone walking in.
Waterside Terrace
Warm Below, Brand Above
The terrace is where both halves of the scheme are visible at once. Above head height, RL-FL5223 grazes the brick return — the same floodlight used round the front, so the two elevations are lit by one fitting rather than two. The colour on this wall is the same brand treatment described on the entrance: the floodlight itself is white, and colour on a Regents job comes from RL-BLW, the RGBW tape. Below head height everything is warm, because nobody wants to sit under a blue light with a drink. RL-WP261 is the working light over the door: an IP65 tri-proof batten, 75 × 20mm in section and available at 600, 1200 or 1500mm, which is the honest and maintainable choice for a doorway taking weather off the water. RL-ST1226 is concealed in the back-bar joinery visible through the glazing, on a 10mm board that fits behind a shelf reveal. The festoon under the pergola is decorative and not part of the package.
Guest Bedroom
Nothing Overhead, Nothing in Your Eyes
There is no ceiling fitting over the beds, and that is the whole design. Someone lying down looks straight up, so the room is lit from the headboard outwards instead. RL-ST1226 is concealed in the reveal behind the full-width timber headboard, washing the wall above it — a 10mm board at 12V, the only section that fits a joinery detail this shallow, and what a guest sees is light reflected off plaster rather than a visible source. RL-REC-RL8125-USB does the reading, recessed into the headboard panel rather than surface-mounted on it, with an integrated USB socket so the bedside table is not competing with a phone charger. One honest note for specification: the shades shown are the interior designer's, and no fitting in the range has that form — this is the functional equivalent, not a like-for-like match.
Main Entrance & Approach
What the Building Looks Like from the Road
This is the view that has to work at forty miles an hour from a dual carriageway, and it does three jobs at three distances. At the longest range, RL-FL5223 washes the render columns either side of the glazing — adjustable head, beam angles from 5° to 90°, CRI above 90, which is what gives an even graze up a flat render face rather than a bright band at the top. It is worth being exact about the colour: RL-FL5223 is a white luminaire, 3000K, 4000K or 6500K. The blue on these columns is a colour effect, and the only colour-capable product in the range is RL-BLW, an RGBW tape run on DMX512. At mid range, RL-SR2049-1 covers the car park — a shoebox area luminaire rather than a road lantern, because a car park needs a rectangular pool over the bays rather than a run of light along a carriageway, and it takes 10kV or 20kV surge protection, which is what actually decides how long external lighting lasts on a UK site. At close range, RL-DL1601 lights the entrance canopy so the doors read as the way in, and RL-BL3292 walks you there at knee height. The illuminated sign is the brand's own fabrication, not a catalogue item.
