Two illumination highlights along with the entire lighting for the record-breaking Norwegian Bliss ensured our nomination for the German Lighting Design Award 2019.

The Norwegian Bliss invites you to marvel: she is currently the ninth largest cruise ship ever built. That’s why it was clear to us that her lighting design also had to be first rate. Our key to the convincing lighting concept of the Norwegian Bliss included a combination of special designs and interdisciplinary cooperation.

The challenge we faced in developing a convincing lighting concept was the many different areas of the Norwegian Bliss as each of their lighting requirements differ greatly. The ‘typical’ areas of a first-rate cruise ship of this level alone, i.e. bars, restaurants, the spa, the shopping area, the casino, the pool area, the theatre and others, required a special approach, a lot of know-how and finesse on our part. But the Norwegian Bliss is about much more than that.

Lighting design for the highlights of the Norwegian Bliss

The impressively large cruise ship in the Norwegian Cruise Lines fleet offers its guests very special leisure activities: that's because they can enjoy a truly different, faster view of the sea on a go-kart track in the outer area of the ship which stretches over two decks. We were tasked with making this highlight perfect.

We not only developed lighting that meets the requirements of a go-kart track but also created a true media highlight. We equipped the outer tracks of the go-kart track with media tubes that play content tailored to occurrences on the track. The light reacts to every movement on the track: For example, if a race is interrupted, a yellow flag is simulated to warn drivers.

As the resolution of the media tubes is only a few centimetres and thus small, they can display very fine pictures. What makes it so special: Drivers can only perceive these images from a steep angle – when many tubes lie one behind the other and merge to form a large overall picture.

The gigantic chandelier of the Norwegian Bliss: a breathtaking challenge

The atrium of the Norwegian Bliss harboured another lighting highlight that presented us with a real challenge. It is home to a chandelier consisting of 220,000 glass crystals, individually and manually applied to the chrome-plated, laser-cut steel. We designed and developed the chandelier in cooperation with Tillberg Design of Sweden and the manufacturer Preciosa.

Specific extras came into play for the installation of the chandelier, which also have to be considered for lighting concepts for cruise ships: we thus attached the entire construction to the ceiling using rubber dampers for a vibration-free solution. In this way, we were able to prevent the four-tonne chandelier from swinging back and forth due to movements typical of ships.

We chose two products for the lighting on the chandelier. LED modules now provide neutral white lighting from the inside, which is supplemented by RGB flexible strips located in the outer glass tubes. This design is divided into two levels that can be controlled individually. In order to create the chandelier effect, we adapted the lighting to the times of day and programmed it so that the lighting changes automatically eight times a day. It was also important to us during the planning phase that the large chandelier could be accessed from the inside so that it could be maintained without any hassles.

We believe the lighting concept for the Norwegian Bliss is one of the best examples of the high demands that cruise ship lighting design places on us every day.