The apartment in the heart of London’s historic Borough Market was completely renovated to create a luxury duplex penthouse.

The location of the penthouse means that it has views over the north side of the Thames to rival those from the top of the Tate Modern. The unusual rotunda shape presented challenges and opportunities for some stunning modern design.

Clipsal C-Bus lighting control was used throughout to provide the control required. The stainless Reflection style switches were used as it was felt that these would best fit with the contemporary interior. One of the advantages of C-Bus is that it combines industrial grade dimming and switching with designer switch plates. Rather than suffer American style plastic plates C-Bus users can chose between flush mount stainless steel plates, glass or brass styles to complement their interiors.

The lighting control and design was central to the concept of the apartment from the start. Beyond the Invisible designed and installed the C-Bus lighting control, audio visual systems, and data networks, while the lighting was designed by Lighting Design International.

The first decision that architect Mark Sylvester of ICON Architects took was to invert the bedrooms and living space to capitalise on the views. The main living space, dining area and kitchen are on the top floor while the master bedroom, master en-suite and second bedroom and study are on the floor below.

There is a central stairwell rising through the building that intrudes into the circular living space. Rather than square it off, Mark decided to make a feature of it and to use it to reflect the curved wall of glass. The area was transformed into a circular wall rendered in concrete. Contrasting highly polished bands emphasis the form and create interest. Downlights were arranged around the perimeter of the wall and specially adjusted so that the wall was washed with light without the usual ‘scallop’ effect being visible.

As well as being an unusual shape, the main living space also has the stairs from the lower floor rising up about a third of the way across the room. Due to building regulations it wasn’t possible to create the stairway without a balustrade, however this would have been visually intrusive. The solution was to install a curved glass balustrade that maintained the feeling of space. To make a feature of the curved staircase, small low level stair lights were installed above the steps.

The ceiling was lowered in the main living space to reflect the shape of the room and to allow lighting and speakers to be concealed. The circular edge of the suspended ceiling is highlighted using click strip and downlighters have been positioned to highlight the architectural features and to provide ambient light.

Scenes were set to reflect the activities in the room. To avoid too much reflection in the glass at night and make sure that the amazing nightscape outside could take centre stage the evening scenes were carefully adjusted to balance the interior and exterior light levels. Care was also taken to ensure that the space looked equally stunning when viewed from the dining area in the kitchen.

It was is the scene setting and control of individual circuits that the Clipsal C-Bus system really comes into its own. Any key on a switch plate can be set to trigger a scene, dim an individual circuit of light or turn off a whole area or even the whole apartment. Unlike other systems the designer isn’t limited to a set number of scenes in an area. To facilitate control and to make the system as simple to use as possible, the stainless steel Reflection switch plates are available in one, two, three, four, six and eight button formats. As a single piece of C-Bus Cat5e cable is run to each switch, changing from a two button to a eight button switch just means swapping out the switch and updating the program, and no further cabling is required.

If you think that you might struggle to remember what eight buttons do, C-Bus has other options. The glass Saturn style switches are available in a DLT (Dynamic Labelling Technology) format. Each button has a LCD display next to it describing the function, such as Dining, TV or Night Mode. If the function of the button is changed the label can be updated without the need to replace expensively engraved buttons.

The C-Bus system also has both colour and black and white touch panels to provide graphical control over lighting, blinds, curtains and sky lights. If you want to combine the power of C-Bus with your other entertainment, CCTV and control systems it integrates seamlessly with Crestron control system.

It was decided that the occupier might eventually tire of the view so would need the latest in home entertainment. It was equally important the entertainment systems didn’t detract from the stunning location and interior.

The living room incorporates a plasma screen concealed behind sliding doors. The cabinetry design had to be carefully designed to follow the curvature of the walls while blending into the rest of the décor. When closed the cabinetry looks like stylish storage, when open the full glory of the 61” NEC plasma screen is revealed. To complement the screen, 5.1 surround sound is provided via in-ceiling Speakercraft Aim8 Five speakers matched with a REL Strata 5 subwoofer concealed in the cabinetry. The cinema is powered by a Yamaha RX-V2500 cinema receiver and a Yamaha DVD-S2500 DVD player provides the source. Both are also located in the cabinetry and the whole system controlled by a simple to use Universal Remotes MX900 remote control.

The entertainment is provided in the other rooms via a Speakercraft MZC66 six source, six zone whole house entertainment system. A 32” LCD TV was flush mounted in the kitchen for early morning news watching and a 23” TV was installed in the Master Bedroom. So no one need ever miss anything a Tilevision 17” TV was installed in the master en-suite bathroom. In-ceiling speakers were installed throughout the apartment.

Rather than have CDs clutter up the clean interior all the music is stored on a 4 output Marantz DH9500 hard disk music server. Music can be selected on any screen in the apartment, including the waterproof bathroom TV.