The light fittings at Stejarii Country Club

Stejarii Country Club opened at the end of 2013, in the Baneasa forest, as the first club of its kind in Romania: over 20,000 square metres built, with a 6,000 square metre green roof and three glass domes. The architecture is by West Group Architecture, the concept by the London practice Collado Collins, and the interior design by HBA / Hirsch Bedner Associates — a practice we work with on other projects too.

The building has two semi-Olympic pools, a 25-metre indoor one and an outdoor one, tennis, squash and padel courts, studios, a restaurant with a terrace, and the Shiseido Spa — the Japanese brand's first spa in Eastern Europe.

In a building where almost everything is glass, stone and pale wood, the decorative lighting was not allowed to add yet another style. The fittings had to stay discreet by day, when the light comes in from the forest through the glazed walls, and take over in the evening, when the club is the only source of light in the forest.

We worked from the interior designers' drawings, fitting by fitting, in our own workshop in Bucharest: cutting, welding, finishing, and the shades sewn in house. Delivery and installation were done by our own team, in November 2013. See how we work in the workshop.

The sixteen lanterns are the most visible piece of the commission and the only one repeated throughout the club: on the floor at the edge of the indoor pool, on the restaurant terrace, and along the kerbs between the planters. The frame is stainless steel and brass, painted matt black, with a scale pattern cut into the sheet; inside sits an opal glass cylinder, so the source is never seen directly.

The shape is oval, not round — an oval lantern sits flush against a wall or a kerb without projecting into the walkway, and at a pool that matters: the floor is wet, and anything standing in the way becomes a problem.

The handle on top is not an ornament. The lanterns get moved: in they come for winter, out onto the terrace for summer, and at events they are placed wherever they are needed. A fitting you can lift by its handle, with one hand, is moved without tools.

Stainless steel and brass were chosen for where the pieces have to work: chlorinated air at the pool, rain and frost on the terrace. A painted steel fitting would have started rusting around the welds at the base after the first season. About outdoor lighting.

At the time of these photographs, the restaurant was a black library running the full length of the wall, with banquettes and velvet armchairs. A chandelier would have been a mistake here: the ceiling is a low services ceiling, full of ventilation grilles. All the decorative light was brought down to human height.

On the shelving we fitted eight reflector wall lights: a matt black sheet metal cone on an articulated polished brass arm, with the inside of the cone covered in gold leaf. The leaf cannot be seen from the room, but it can be seen in the light — the gold warms the beam and lifts the book spines and the objects in the cases out of the dark.

Nine floor lamps stand between the tables: seven with brass shades in an antique finish, and two clad in white leather. In a restaurant a floor lamp has one advantage no ceiling fitting has — it moves. The room is rearranged for an event, and the light follows the tables.

To these are added twenty swing-arm wall lights with shades, for the corridors, the lounge areas and the reception rooms, plus four smaller wall lights, two of them raised. All the shades are sewn in our own workshop, on frames made to measure. See the lampshades.

When it opened, the Shiseido Spa at Stejarii was the Japanese brand's first spa in Eastern Europe — a thousand square metres with therapy rooms, a hammam, saunas and a relaxation pool. For its reception we made, in January 2014, a suspended ceiling ornament: dozens of glass leaves, yellow and white, hung on fine wires at different heights.

The piece has no body and no arms. The sources are hidden in the ceiling, and all that is seen is the glass catching the light — a ginkgo shaken loose, halted halfway down. It is the only object in the whole reception that moves when someone opens the door.

Above the pool hang 24-volt LED pendants: curved blades of black Corian and satin brass, assembled into a teardrop, with the lamp hidden in the middle. The low voltage is not a catalogue flourish — less than three metres above water, a 24-volt installation is the right one.

The blades do not touch: they leave slots between them through which the light falls onto the water in stripes and breaks up in the ripples. It is the same principle as the poolside lanterns — the source is never seen directly, only what it does. Bespoke pieces.