The space
Mojito Bay is an open seaside deck at Varkiza — palms, lounge beds, a restaurant and a long bar, and no walls to bounce light off. Everything has to be lit from below or from within the planting, and the venue changes character across a single evening: dinner at blue hour, then a club atmosphere later. One static scheme could not serve both.
The palms
The base layer is warm and fixed. Uplights sit at the foot of each palm and throw light up the trunk into the fronds, which turns the planting into the architecture of the space — at night the palms are the walls. Low-level warm light washes the lounge beds and circulation just enough to move safely, and nothing points at the sky, so the deep blue over the sea is never washed out.
At night the palms are the walls.
The restaurant
The dining terrace sits beneath a stretched white sail. Rather than hanging fittings from it, the sail is lit from below, so the fabric itself becomes one broad, glare-free source over the tables. Drum-shaded floor lamps stand between the tables at a lower, more intimate height, and candles hold each setting — a warm, calm room for dinner, with the colour of the club kept at a distance.
Colour as a scene control
Over the warm base sits a colour layer: magenta and violet washes across the palms, the deck and the canopies, on a control system so the venue can move from restaurant to club without touching the working light. Around the DJ booth a rig of stage fixtures takes over for performance, and the round bar is lit from within, so it glows as the brightest object on the deck and reads as the destination from anywhere.
