Perfect Vision

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 1/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

A jaunt to the Schlossplatz in Stuttgart may send you running to have your vision checked. Look up to the second floor of a neoclassical limestone building right on the square, and you'll see an enormous floating eye: It's mounted on the ceiling at Kästner Optik, an optometry center recently updated by the Ippolito Fleitz Group.

This two-story facility was designed 10 years ago by HG Merz—also responsible for the exhibition space at the southwestern German city's Mercedes-Benz Museum. At Kästner Optik, the eyewear shop on the ground level remains unchanged. But the 850-square-foot upstairs consultation and examination areas have a whole new look, completed by architects Peter Ippolito and Gunter Fleitz in a mere six weeks.

The ceiling of the consultation zone is the location of the eye—actually a fluorescent light box 13 feet across, covered by a digital print and translucent plastic film. Courtesy of strategically placed mirrors, the eye is visible not only from outside but also from the shop at the bottom of the stairs. An image of a blinking eye, changing from young to old and male to female, appears in a corner, on three LCD screens. Echoing the eye theme, a ray motif in stainless steel is inlaid into the epoxy-resin floor, while one wall of the stairwell is similarly detailed.

Floor and walls are light gray. Service desks, display cases, and tables are MDF lacquered in pale taupes. White faux leather wraps seating cubes and swivel chairs by Patrick Norguet. "The atmosphere communicates precision and care," Ippolito says. "But without the white coat."

An attention-grabbing interruption to the calm, the clear glass doors between the consultation and examination areas are a flurry of white block letters large and small. Fleitz calls it a "wild and fragmented flow of information relating to optometry."

The soothing mood resumes in the three exam rooms, essentially a row of boxes with charcoal-gray walls, ceilings, and flooring. A single white examination chair, the only piece of furniture in each room, has the necessary projector set into the wall directly above. ("Projectors are usually quite ugly," Ippolito explains.) Because the partitions between the rooms stand 8 inches shy of the ceiling, the same two fluorescent strip fixtures can run from one end of the row to the other.

Examination almost complete, customers return to the consultation area, where a video camera records the distance between their pupils. The optometrist then uses this measurement to position lenses in their frames more precisely. Finally, the camera captures the customer's profile from several angles and transmits the images to an LCD screen for review. Seeing well and looking good.

At Kästner Optik in Stuttgart, Germany, a fluorescent fixture is integrated into the wall by the stairs leading up from an existing eyewear shop to a newly renovated consultation and examination center.

Clockwise from top left: Vinyl lettering by Bruno Nagel covers the glass doors separating the consultation area from the three examination rooms. Seating in the consultation area includes a pair of cubes covered in faux leather; the flooring is epoxy resin. Used for fitting contact lenses, the largest exam room contains a custom chair. A ceiling-mounted "eye," 13 feet in diameter, is composed of plastic film applied to a digital print backlit by fluorescents.

Clockwise from top left: The consultation area's Apollo chairs by Patrick Norguet surround a custom desk of lacquered MDF; an LCD screen mounted on the desk allows customers to check out video images of themselves in their new glasses. In the exam rooms, customers read letters and numbers projected onto a mirror. The facility occupies a 1958 limestone building on the city's Schlossplatz. A custom table combines a lacquered MDF top and a stainless-steel base.