Take a Deep Breath for the Lighting Design at Inspire 3.0
Inspire Physiotherapy For Women, Beaconsfield, 2026.
collab 3.0 with Bergman & Co for this sublime space.
Soft light, smart control, seamless design for the expansion & refurb of the women’s healthcare hub.
The magic with Inspire started in version 1.0, a space built around adaptable scenes for everything from pregnancy classes to strength sessions to cheeky drinks after dark. The previous lighting design accolades tell their own story.
For the latest inclination it was all about women’s healthcare space that doesn’t feel like a waiting room. Inspire For Women Physio needed to say ‘ta ta’ to sterile fluorescents and clinical white, and run toward something that felt like an exhale, comfortable, calming, and still entirely functional for the treatment work happening inside it.
PREVIOUS LIGHTING awards
- Winner LIT Lighting (Wellness & Health)
- Casambi Awards 2024 finalist
- Darc Awards Shortlisted
- Dezeen Awards
The Brief: Comfort Over Clinical
The brief was simple to say and considerably trickier to execute: a healthcare environment that feels human first. Lead designer Sharlene Jayawardena explains the thinking behind it. “To feel comfortable, calming and functional, moving away from a typical clinical atmosphere the answer lay heavily on indirect and diffused light, FAB stretched fabric lightboxes, pendants and andro downlights doing the functional work, while the illumination itself stays soft and welcoming rather than shadowless and stark”.
The treatment rooms carry the boldest idea in the build: a fully custom pendant, designed uplight-first to give practitioners genuine task lighting while keeping glare away from patients on the table. Getting that softness without ever revealing a bare light source meant developing custom ceiling moulds to conceal the LEDs, a fiddly, worthwhile problem to solve. “Achieving effective illumination without exposing the light sources directly” was the challenge, and the ceiling itself became the fixture. Shaz’s favourite part isn’t one room, it’s the whole thing (I know, greedy right). “The lighting has been carefully considered in every space and works beautifully with the interior palette. From the lightboxes to the custom pendants, each area has its own character while still feeling cohesive.”
FAB: The Ceiling That Ties It All Together
Tying the new space back to the rest of the studio fell to FAB’s recessed Tunable White and RGBW boxes, stretched into the ceiling to keep that same indirect language running throughout. The brief here was about continuity as much as impact. It was a way to link the new area to the existing spaces while still giving it a centrepiece moment as clients walk in. The deep recess and rounded edges give the finish a distinct, sculptural quality, adding a genuinely new layer to the space rather than simply repeating what came before.
INTERIOR DESIGN
Bergman & Co
photography
Nicole Reed
Casambi: A Smarter Kind of Glow
Behind the softness sits a smart system by an even smarter member of the ambo fambo, Controls Specialist Dmitrii Smirnov. He led the controls side of the build on a Casambi-based elements, and for him the appeal is that it works for everyone in the building, not just the designers. “A smart lighting system helps bring the whole concept together,” he says. Casambi-ready devices let the venue split into distinct dimming zones without boxing the lighting design into a corner, LED drivers for single-colour strips, PWM dimmers for the tunable white and RGBW light boxes, phase-cut dimmers for the decorative fittings, and preset scene switches in the treatment rooms.
Wireless communication between devices also meant a far cleaner install. “Drivers and dimmers require straightforward wiring and no dedicated control cables,” Dmitrii notes, which is as much a win for the electricians on site as it is for the finished ceiling line, fist bump! And once handed over, staff can shift the whole mood from a tablet, on the spot, no technician required (and adios call-out fees). As Dmitrii puts it, “a striking example of how smart lighting can go beyond simply controlling brightness” making it an important part of creating the right experience for both clients and staff.
The result is a studio that feels as one and wrapped in a gentle glow that actually feels like care. Take a deep breath in, then out folks, now enjoy. To find out about our our lighting design, supply and controls team can help bring your vision to life – reach out CONTACT US
“The luminaires rest in harmony with the interior palette,
each area has its own character while still feeling cohesive”
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