Case study: Intu Victoria Cntre, Nottingham UK
For local people and visitors to Nottingham city the intu Victoria Centre offers top brands and great restaurants. The chosen destination for 24 million shopping visits a year, the centre has recently undergone a £42 million transformation to create a stylish, contemporary retail space that attracts top brand retailers as well as thousands of visitors.
Project brief
The centre’s refurbishment included a full upgrade of the centre and its finishes, including structural changes such as removing staircases and walkways to open up visibility, reconfiguration of space to create enhanced shop frontages, new ceilings, remodelled bulkheads, new flooring materials, upgraded customer toilet facilities and new lighting.
With the shopping centre open for long hours every day of the week, a fast turnaround with flexible out of hours installation was essential for avoiding disruption and keeping the centre operational. Long-term reliability and ease of maintenance were also important considerations, given the centre’s daily opening.
New linear lighting was integral to the centre’s refurbishment, creating a modern, bright and dynamic visual impression. To ensure a quality look and feel, achieving a constant lit effect and colour/visual consistency was essential.
Commenting on the design, Hoare Lea Senior Lighting Designer Chris Fox said: “Our approach was ‘lighting through layers’ – combining direct and indirect sources to build a visual scene with various options. With its precision engineering and 2 step MacAdam binning, we identified acdc’s Orelle as integral to this.”
Solution Approximately 3,000 metres of acdc’s Orelle 24V indirect linear luminaire has been installed in the coffered ceilings throughout the centre. Orelle is compact and puts lines of light to the ceilings for architectural effect. Providing a fresh 4000K white ambient light, it also provides an even, continuous and powerful light output with excellent colour rendering and a low profile. Orelle is available in five lengths from 110mm to 1810mm and can follow shapes and curves thanks to flexible connectors. Minimised LED spacing creates a smooth and even lit effect while all LEDs are within a 2 step MacAdam ellipse to ensure colour constancy. Plug and socket interconnection ensured rapid installation. Chris Fox, Senior Lighting Designer at Hoare Lea, said: “Aside from being able to offer the right lighting solution for this project, one of the reasons we choose acdc was because we were confident in their ability to manage a large order. They held high levels of stock and were able to provide a quick delivery.“We were also impressed by the product demonstration Liam (our local rep) provided at our office. The demonstration allowed us to thoroughly examine the quality of the luminaire and ensure it was the right solution for our client. “The lighting has met all our expectations and has played an integral role in transforming the intu Victoria Centre.”
www.acdclighting.co.uk