Shining a Light on College Athletics

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Leading and Empowering

Every aspect of Colby College’s new facility—lighting included—provides a best-in-class experience for student athletes.

By Jana Madsen, contributing writer

When Colby College in Waterville, Maine, envisioned a new sports and fitness facility on campus, they saw it as an opportunity to provide a cutting-edge Division III athletic environment. Hopkins Architects (London, UK, lead architect) and Sasaki (Boston-based architect of record) delivered. They pulled in HLB Lighting Design for help lighting all the venues in the new three-story, 350,000-sq.-ft. Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center. “We were brought in early in the process, which was great because we got to influence architectural decisions that were being made. Both firms really understood how important it was to integrate lighting into the architecture,” says Robyn Goldstein, Associate Principal, HLB Lighting Design.

Located on the north end of campus, the facility brings Colby College’s sports venues under one roof:

 A multi-use fieldhouse with a 200-meter track and tennis courts.

 An ice arena with year-round regulation ice.

 The only Olympic-sized Myrtha pool in Maine.

 The Margaret M. Crook Center with three regulation-length basketball/volleyball courts.

 A squash center with nine championship regulation courts.

Students looking to get a workout in are also welcome. The Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation

Center contains a fitness center, 42-ft.-tall climbing and bouldering wall, sports medicine facilities, offices, and multipurpose spaces.

A Welcoming Beacon

The $200 million project was the largest building project in Maine during construction and is the most comprehensive National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III athletics facility in the country. “Colby was looking to attract talent and really hoping that their new state-of-the-art athletic center would be a beacon,” explains Goldstein. To that end, part of the fieldhouse exterior has a translucent polycarbonate wall that, with gently filtered interior lighting, creates an elegant glow and welcoming nightlight for everyone on campus. Fixtures were positioned close to Kalwall’s translucent wall system and circuited separately so that at night the exterior can still glow, but lighting in the rest of the fieldhouse can be off if the facility is unoccupied.

Despite the size of the Recreation Center, wayfinding is intuitive. “All the sports venues are organized around the central courtyard area and that core circulation feeds you into each different venue,” explains Amy Huan, Associate, HLB Lighting Design. The architectural design prioritized daylight and openness, with large expanses of glass that maximize views into and out of venues.

PROJECT SPECS

Project: Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center, Colby College, Waterville, Maine

Lead Architect: Hopkins Architects, London, UK

Architect of Record: Sasaki, Boston

Lighting Designers: HLB Lighting Design

NCAA and Athlete Expectations

It was important that the facility adhere to the best practices for sports lighting recommended by the NCAA. These guidelines ensure player safety; reduced energy, maintenance, and life-cycle costs; environmental sensitivity; as well as an optimum environment for televised events. “They were looking to achieve broadcast light levels for NCAA standards. While they are a Division III school, we designed to higher light levels,” says Goldstein. Lighting for the venues was designed with flexibility and maximum control. “You might not want to practice in competition light levels every day. The fixtures are zoned so they are able to be controlled separately,” she explains.

The architecture team solicited input from Colby’s athletes and coaches when designing the Recreation Center. Not surprisingly, glare was a common concern that was raised. HLB Lighting Design used a number of strategies to provide even light, despite a lot of glass and daylit spaces and the need for high-bay fixtures. “We intentionally illuminated the solid walls to reduce the contrast ratio and provide better visual comfort, and balance things out,” explains Huan. Careful selection of fixtures and accessories and the use of uplight throughout spaces were critical.

FLOODLIGHT

The Quantum LED floodlight has been designed around powerful high-performance LEDs and precision optics so that the luminaire can be used to illuminate various applications from building facades to high multi-story surfaces and in Colby College’s natatorium. This luminaire range is available with RGBW dynamic color changing technology, or static white LEDs to give the specifier artistic lighting options. Anti-glare louvers are also available.

Ligman Lighting www.ligmanlightingusa.com

Customized Lighting for Each Venue

Where high bay fixtures were used (the fieldhouse, competition gymnasium, and ice rink), HLB specified a direct/indirect luminaire to cut down on the contrast ratio. “If you have this super bright fixture that’s producing so much light and the space around it is dark, it’s going to seem much brighter. Having [the fixtures] be direct/indirect was extremely important,” notes Goldstein.

While the need for visual comfort was a constant, each sport has different lighting priorities. In the ice arena, hockey players need to see a fast-moving object on the ice without seeing the reflection of the lights. At the fieldhouse, where a ball sport is being played in the middle of the track, zoning was critical, so facilities professionals had separate control of the fixtures.

LOW-GLARE HIGH BAY

Phuzion PHS LED high bay is designed to deliver intentional uplighting, in addition to traditional downlighting. This design can reduce glare and visual contrast by eliminating the cave-like atmosphere of high-bay applications and creating unprecedented lighting uniformity for an open look and feel you can see. Its distinctive design ships standard with 86% downlight and 14% uplight.

Holophane holophane.acuitybrands.com

“We don’t have crazy decorative lighting at all in this project. We combined very simple architectural lighting and sports lighting with different strategies to create a very comfortable environment for the athletes.”

Tennis and squash are very different than basketball. “When you have a small ball moving at fast speeds, you need to be able to look up and still see that, so for the squash courts it was really important to have vertical illumination on the head wall and the sidewalls of the spaces, as well as providing enough general lighting,” Goldstein explains.

A custom solution was designed for the natatorium, one that would address concern from back-strokers about being blinded by overhead lights and the challenges of maintaining a lighting system over the pool. “The truss system in the aquatics area was a custom solution that we created to light the space,” says Huan. “It’s two fixtures mounted to a system that gives you the ability to light the ceiling and light the pool, without having any fixtures over the pool.” The adjustable lighting fixtures provide both uplighting and directly light the pool space without causing glare for swimmers.

INDIRECT

Powered by next gen LED technology, Echo Round 9.0 efficiently delivers performance indirect lighting. It can effectively illuminate large, open spaces from the perimeter making it an ideal solution for the Rec Center’s pool. It has high lumen packages and a forward throw of smooth, uniform light.

SPI Lighting www.spilighting.com

LOW-GLARE HIGH BAY

Holophane

Phuzion PHS LED high bay holophane.acuitybrands.com

Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

Colby College is one of only four campuses to achieve carbon neutrality and the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center has received both SITES Gold and LEED Platinum certifications. In addition to air system energy recovery wheels and a pool heating system that uses excess waste heat, the facility employs daylight harvesting. “We have photocells and photo-sensors, which respond to the available daylight and will dim and/or turn off light fixtures, if they are not necessary. We don’t need to have lights on if the daylight is providing the lighting,” explains Goldstein. Even in spaces with abundant natural light, as you move further into the space, sensors will trigger artificial lighting to balance the illumination. These strategies help the Recreation Center maximize energy efficiency. “The lighting is 53% below code,” concludes Goldstein.

“When you have a small ball moving at fast speeds, you need to be able to look up and still see that, so for the squash courts it was really important to have vertical illumination on the head wall and the sidewalls of the spaces, as well as providing enough general lighting.”

—Robyn Goldstein, Associate Principal, HLB Lighting Design

Linear Lighting

Axis Lighting’s streamlined Beam6 LED provides versatility to highlight architectural elements with lines and light patterns, making it ideal for the squash courts. Engineered for long life and virtually no maintenance, it delivers up to 83 lm/W. Its costeffective, environmentally friendly LED platform features superior visual comfort without lens pixilation. It presents a 5-in. aperture, lightweight extruded aluminum body, and flush lens; recessed versions offer a regressed lens; integrated controls available.

Axis Lighting www.axislighting.com

WALL GRAZER

LumenWerx’s elegant, flexible Via family is composed of linear, pendant, surface, recessed, and wall mounted luminaires, each of which can be installed as a discrete lighting fixture or in continuous runs or patterns. Asymmetric, widespread, lowglare, and wall wash optic options allow for precise distribution and exceptional light quality for a wide range of applications.

LumenWerx lumenwerx.com

ARCHITECTURAL HIGH-ABUSE

The Millenium Stretch (MLHA series) is a flexible lighting system with the versatility to meet any architectural high abuse or rough service application. Polycarbonate lenses are added durability. Configure MLHA luminaires into continuous runs and geometric patterns, or add BIOS, tunable or Indigo-Clean technologies, to provide disinfection and circadian benefits.

Kenall | kenall.com