The roar of activity inside the offices and in the surrounding area of 201 California Street was seemingly inescapable, especially for the office building’s tenants rushing by. On the exterior, the building lacked street presence, and on the interior, there was an imbalanced atmosphere with no focal point in the lobby. Tasked with refining the lobby’s ambiance and establishing a unified feel for Beacon Capital Partners, ESI Design created a new identity for the property complete with a peaceful multi-sensory experience. The highlight of this new lobby repositioning in San Francisco is a water-based light installation that gives new life to a previously underutilized fountain in the lobby.

A transformed identity

On the exterior of 201 California Street, ESI Design developed a new aluminum building ID that incorporates angles to mimic the prominent bay windows. The dimensional metal numbers repeat on two sides for increased visibility.

The impact of multi-sensory experiences for lobby repositioning

Inside the lobby, the feature wall serves as a focal point, complementing the building’s existing space. ESI Design’s approach to this San Francisco lobby repositioning promotes a calm, inviting experience through unified materials and finishes, but it is the light installation that uniquely catches the eyes of people walking by. The combination of meditative fluid motion, smooth ambient sound, and calming color washes creates a soothing, contemplative escape from the surrounding bustle, encouraging passersby to pause and enjoy the moment.

How does the water-based light installation work?

The illuminated feature wall uses a pool of gently moving water to augment a projection of rippling imagery onto the wall with controllable light. The motion of the water keeps the installation active and dynamic, while colored light adds even more diversity to the patterns, with the colors changing over the course of the day.

The peaceful water-based light installation evokes the behavior of sunlight hitting California’s mountain lakes and rivers. Between the water’s various motion settings and the light’s color combinations, the installation has well over 100 settings, ensuring variety for tenants who encounter it daily.

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