Case Study: Introducing Sexy Fish Miami

Published on:
May 17, 2022

Evo-Lite’s most impressive project to date

We are excited to share the largest installation in Evo-Lite history: SexyFish Miami: Restaurant + Night Club.

About the venue

Created by Richard Caring, British businessman and restaurateur, SexyFish first debuted in London, United Kingdom in 2015. While the first location will impress all who visit, the newest location in Miami, Florida will absolutely blow your mind.

From top to bottom, Sexy Fish Miami is filled with over $20 million in astounding sculptures, artwork, and illuminated…everything! The restaurant hosts creations by several world-famous artisans. These include bronze mermaids and three-dimensional marlins and octopuses.

Incredible backlit agate floors are brought to life by our very own tunable white Auragami flexible LED light sheet. These floors change from a relaxing warm white to an energizing cool white throughout the day to mimic the circadian rhythm of the sun. Even the bathrooms received the luxury treatment with beautiful pink and blue backlit stone floors and onyx sinks.

Sexy Fish boasts a 40′ long aquarium, 30′ high waterfall, and a three-story open space, called the “ocean”, that exudes the feeling of dining and dancing in a fishbowl.

How we turned a creative vision into a stunning reality

The team at Evo-Lite worked endlessly for over a year on this project. We met with lighting designers, architects, interior designers, contractors, electricians, and AV professionals to proactively plan out the details and solutions to numerous challenges. Making this otherworldly place come to life was a monumental task for all involved.

Evo-Lite illuminated over 5,700 square feet of semi-transparent agate floors which included areas such as the bar, dining, stairs, and restrooms. Additionally, we backlit the bar countertop, bar spirits shelving, bottle steps, and finally the women’s restroom mirror surround. This required over 700 individual lighting circuits.

This was a tremendous project and the team at Evo-Lite found unique ways to help streamline the building process. We created large modular tiles using the award-winning Auragami Flexible Light Sheet. This eliminated the need to apply each sheet individually and resulted in massive time and labor savings.

The tiles offered pre-cut holes for wire management and arrived on the scene with all sheet-to-sheet connections made. This solution combined with the capabilities of Auragami made it easy to customize the product in the field for an effortless fit.

The floor build consisted of a subfloor, Auragami light sheets, acrylic diffuser, and finally the beautiful agate forward-facing material. Like most floors, this one will be subject to weight, moisture, movement, and other hospitality wear and tear. Auragami is the perfect durable solution in this situation and our tile design makes replacements simple and fast.

Streamlined power solutions

The power required for so much lighting was another monumental task, but Evo-Lite also had a smart solution for this as well. These PCE’s utilized Class 2 multi-channel control devices that featured internal fusing and signal light technology for easy troubleshooting. Our Power & Control Enclosures (PCE’s) saved the construction team hundreds of hours by simplifying power connections. We reduced the number of line voltage connections from several hundred to just nine!

Hats off to all involved

In addition to the incredible work by the Evo-Lite team, we’d like to highlight several others for their contribution to the Sexy Fish project.

Concept & Interior Designer: Martin Brudnizki Design Studio
Architect: Bruce Carlson, AIA
General Contractor: South Beach Construction
Lighting Designer: Isometrix
AV Contractor: Audio Video Lighting Innovation

Next time you’re in Miami, Florida we recommend stopping for a drink or meal at one of the most extravagant restaurants in North America. Check out Sexy Fish at https://sexyfishmiami.com.

From small residential jobs to massive projects like Sexy Fish, Evo-Lite is here to support your creative lighting visions. Contact us to get your incredible project started today!

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