Project Info.
AU79 Café
Project Address:
Chadstone, Melbourne
Project Country:
Australia
Project Year:
2021
Project Type:
Commercial Project
Project Scope:
Pendant Lights
Au79 began as a dream in an Abbotsford garage — a cafe named after the chemical symbol for gold, built on a belief that the everyday rituals of coffee and conversation deserve to be elevated. When the brand outgrew its first home and secured a site inside Chadstone, Australia's largest shopping centre, they turned once again to Melbourne studio Mim Design to translate that vision into a new space with its own distinct identity.
The brief Mim received had two mandates: maintain a family resemblance to the Abbotsford original, and create a moment of pure gold. Looking up at Chadstone's dramatic vaulted glass ceiling above the pill-shaped site, the design team found their concept. They would build a greenhouse sanctuary — a white-arched colonnade that echoes the sweeping lines of the atrium above, layered with cascading tropical plants, rich terrazzo and stone, brass details, and flesh-coloured leather. An oasis of calm in one of Melbourne's busiest retail environments.
From the outset, the lighting was central to the concept — not as a functional afterthought, but as a defining element of the experience Mim Design wanted to create. The bar zone, separated from the café by a central servery, needed to transition seamlessly from the bright, plant-filled daytime space into something altogether different after the sun went down. Kieren from the Au79 team put it plainly: "At night, we wanted to create the atmosphere of sitting under the glow of the moon."
That single sentence became Lucretia's brief. A series of oversized spherical pendants — glowing, sculptural, and large enough to hold their own beneath the soaring atrium — were needed to anchor the bar area and carry the space through its day-to-night transformation. The scale Mim Design had in mind was ambitious: 2 metres in diameter for the hero pendant, with smaller companions floating alongside it in a constellation that felt organic rather than arranged.
Engineering a seamless spherical form at that scale — inside a working shopping centre, with the structural and safety requirements that entails — is not a standard production challenge. A 2-metre globe that reads as weightless and luminous from below must also be rigorously safe overhead. Lucretia engineered the pendant using a lightweight fabrication approach that allowed the form to achieve the floating, moon-like quality Mim Design had envisioned, without compromising on the structural requirements of a high-traffic public space. The surface finish was developed to diffuse light evenly across the full sphere, eliminating hot spots and producing the soft, ambient glow that the brief called for.
What makes the AU79 moon pendants more than a decorative choice is that they were conceived as part of the spatial narrative from the beginning. Mim Design did not design the space and then select lighting from a catalogue. They articulated a specific experiential intent — moonlight in a greenhouse — and Lucretia engineered the object that made it real. The pendant is not illustrating the concept. It is the concept, given form and hung from the ceiling of a shopping centre for thousands of people to sit beneath every day.
Looking to enhance the visual impact of your development or commercial project? Lucretia specialises in architectural façade lighting design that brings buildings to life after dark. From concept development to technical delivery, our team creates tailored lighting solutions that balance aesthetics, functionality, and long-term performance. Contact Lucretia today to discuss how we can bring your architectural vision to life.
