UMMO

The art and culture of Italy converge with Chicago’s vibrant music scene in the design of UMMO, a contemporary Italian restaurant in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. The resulting jazz-club ambience unites the restaurant’s 100-seat fine dining room with its funky, lofted lounge space. The lighting design supports the unique features of each.

A lower ceiling creates intimacy in the main-level dining area, where eclectic artwork and decor are layered atop a natural color palette of tan and brown hues. Individual mono-point spotlights provide the bulk of illumination, with a color temperature of 2700K supporting the sophisticated aesthetic. The fixtures are mounted to a black box on the ceiling to light artwork on the walls, and attached to sticks within the wooden ceiling to illuminate tabletops. A row of the same fixtures with a larger aperture provides circulation lighting. Additional linear fixtures behind banquette cushions offer atmospheric up light, which is complemented by decorative pendants and tabletop lamps.

Upstairs, a barrel ceiling with large curves and trusses establishes a hip, industrial vibe. Mono-point spotlights on different length stems supplement daylight from a central skylight, which provides the loft’s main source of illumination. A smaller version of the same fixture illuminates artwork. The cylinders on each fixture are individually adjustable, so the light can be focused like a track head by changing the direction of the lens. The adjacent private dining room is anchored by a large-scale illuminated wall feature containing three lines of light that can change intensity and color, as well as a row of decorative, mirrored-disc pendants with filament LED bulbs above the tabletop.