Guinness Storehouse, Ingredients Exhibition

The lighting design by Michael Grubb Studio was developed with lead branding innovation studio Dalziel & Pow (D&P). Their vision for the project was to celebrate the farming process, where each ingredient is nurtured, selected, and treated with care and creativity to get Guinness right every time.

The journey starts with a sensory reset, transitioning through an impressive hand-crafted tunnel to discover a large introductory screen, which acts as a billboard-sized trailer for the story to come. Lighting in this area is restrained, allowing the digital display maximum impact and focus.

The visitor then finds themselves transported into a field of real barley, where the weather is dramatic and changeable. The lighting reflects this narrative and enhances the experience via a carefully choreographed combination of light and shadow play. To add to the emotion, the lighting subtly shifts through a range of warm to cool light, which emulates the passage of time and creates the feeling of being submerged within the crop fields.

The next experience is water, where a huge 14-metre curved water curtain wraps the space, printing key stories in the water. Lighting was incorporated within the feature to add to the drama, creating ‘caustic’ effects by reflecting light from suspended metallic

dappled materials onto the surrounding walls.

Next, the visitor enters a cathedral-like space, with hops appearing to grow endlessly upwards, illuminated and reflected around you. Silhouettes were created within the space by lighting through the hanging hops, creating hints of green through the semi-translucent edges of the bunches, similar to the sun breaking through a canopy of green.

Upstairs, the visitor discovers the fourth and final ingredient, the magic of yeast, in a bright space flooded with light and mist, shifting from nature to a modern, scientific lab.

The final lighting scheme for Guinness Ingredients is a testament to the power of collaborative design and an innovative lighting approach. By meticulously replicating the changing seasons and focusing on the unique characteristics of each ingredient,

the lighting design not only complements but also amplifies the overall narrative of the ingredients’ journey from nature to brew.