At long last, sailing-superyacht enthusiasts are getting their first looks at Seven, the newest delivery from Perini Navi. She represents a love of family as much as a love of pushing technology to replicate reality.
Seven, Perini Navi’s 62nd launch, gets her name from something quite near and dear to the heart of her owner, Ennio Doris. Actually, not something, but someone—seven someones, to be exact. The Italian businessman has seven grandchildren. Time with them, and their families, is crucial to him. Suitably, they all enjoy sailing, too. The 197-foot (60-meter) sailing yacht therefore has six staterooms to bring the generations together. Two of those staterooms are master suites, too.

Pale-tone sycamore wood and similarly subdued colors set the ambiance aboard Seven. To create the mood, Doris selected Dante O. Benini & Partners, a Milan-based studio. Benini himself believes that architecture and design must not rely on beauty alone. In fact, he believes beauty must flow from function—support the well-being of the people who’ll use the space, whether a yacht or a building. Similarly, it needs to embrace technology. So, while Seven has more-than-comfortable headroom and social spaces, she relies on abundant natural light coming inside. Interestingly, though, she also relies on strong artificial lighting design.
However, “artificial” might be a misnomer. Direct, indirect, as well as backlit lighting throughout the yacht avoid the harshness sometimes associated with interior illumination. “When the sun comes in through the windows aboard Seven, it creates an absolutely natural play of shadows and light,” Benini explains. “This was what we wanted to recreate.” His studio did so with Videoworks, an A/V specialist.

Videoworks needed to bring out the subtleties of Seven’s design while simultaneously setting up an electronically controlled lighting-management system. Increasingly, lighting is no longer simply a wall switch in a room connected to a lamp. Similarly, lighting is no longer simply an on or off scenario. It’s a complex setup where dimming, fading, and more controls create atmospheres, through digital interfaces. Likewise, superyacht owners and guests want gradual, soft transitions from one atmosphere to the other, much like how the day gradually becomes night.
The end result aboard Seven? A “perfect symbiosis” between Videoworks and Benini’s studio, the chief designer says. He adds that the collaboration “allowed us to realize a very innovative system that avoids any kind of dazzling light.”
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