Light up the court

The Adidas Flagship is inspired by the home of sports earliest victories—the high school stadium. The four-level, 45,000-square-foot store in Midtown Manhattan features point of sale areas themed as ticket booths, fitting rooms as locker rooms, and seating areas as bleachers. High-concept and instantly relatable, the lighting design supported the compelling brand storytelling throughout. We collaborated with Gensler to provide solutions that remained aesthetically consistent with the design theme.

Visitors enter through a concrete tunnel lit by in-grade color-changing accent lights. The suspense builds, as if they’re walking from the locker room into the bright lights of the court or field. Once inside, they look up to see a large-scale neon basketball court, suspended from the ceiling. The lights shimmer on the polished concrete floor, mirroring the reflective finish of a basketball court. This neon centerpiece is flanked by large digital displays. Color-changing and tunable track mounted lights tucked above the neon can be turned on to illuminate changing displays, ensuring that the entry zone can be continually dynamic.

As visitors move throughout the store, their paths are subtly illuminated by dimmable linear lights set within wire guards. The metal wire brings to mind pick-up basketball games, baseball field backstops, or the raw materiality of stadium architecture. The placement of the lighting amplifies the patterns of the wire and fencing by casting shadows across the space. We used LED accent lights mounted on an exposed grid to provide focal lighting in balance with the space’s industrial aesthetic. Throughout, we highlighted product displays with contrast light level ratios that create a focused shopping experience, without sacrificing the store’s conceptual storytelling.

For a final level of illumination, large-scale custom stadium lights suspend from the exposed concrete ceiling. Visible from the streets, these lights work with the illuminated bleachers and color-tunable accent lights to channel the energy and excitement of a championship night game.