Project. Audi Manhattan recently moved to its new location in New York, NY – a state-of-the-art facility built for the ultimate car buying experience. In the new facility’s vehicle handover area, where new owners see their car for the very first time, lighting is crucial. The distinct character and style of the owner’s Audi must be unveiled flawlessly.

Concept/Design. In the vehicle handover area at the new Audi Manhattan, customers pick up their vehicles with style in a room illuminated by SEFAR LIGHTFRAME® wall and ceiling panels. Lightframe provides an atmosphere that showcases the car and generates excitement in ownership while staying true to the Audi brand. In terms of light quality and transmission, SEFAR LIGHTFRAME® outperformed all of the other products that the project’s architect and the design architect considered. They were very impressed with its ease of accessibility for cleaning and its simple, elegant aesthetic.

Construction. SEFAR LIGHTFRAME® features dual wrinkle-free, high lightdiffusing architectural fabrics biaxially stretched over a razor thin modular frame system. Lightframe’s unique secondary membrane allows it to diffuse light while improving acoustics. The dual membrane system prevents the penetration of debris and bugs that hinder the visual impact of other translucent ceiling products. The individual Lightframe modules at Audi Manhattan are stretched with two layers of SEFAR® Architecture’s IA-80-CL PVDF interior acoustic fabric on the visible side that allows 80 percent light transmission. Both the ceiling and wall modules were installed with electric lighting fixtures. The artificial lighting is transmitted through the Lightframe fabric, providing beautifully diffused and uniform light while improving room acoustics. This provides the ideal environment to explain the controls and operation of the new Audi vehicle to the customer. Each Lightframe module pivots to a vertical position for ease of cleaning and fixture maintenance.