LIGHTING
Lit steel ducting at London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
FOCUS ON: LIGHTING
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JOINING THE DOTS By Dominic Meyrick The British Council for Offices’ (BCO) new Office Fit-Out Guide joins existing guidance to create a collection of crucial documents for those involved in office lighting. The guide will sit alongside ‘BS EN 12464-1:2002, Light and Lighting – Lighting of Workplaces’ and ‘LG7: Office Lighting’. In isolation each document is inadequate. However, each contains nuggets of wisdom that will point the way towards improving the office environment. NUMBER-TASTIC: BS EN 12464-1:2002 This is a very dry document full of anoraky information. High standards of office accommodation exist in many EU countries. But in other countries, standards are perhaps not so good and new EU
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members may not have previously worked with European Standards. This document sensibly sets a base level. It gives guidance on the minimum standards the designer should attain – it should be viewed as a springboard. Perhaps the most important information to remember is in the introduction, ‘this standard neither provides specific solutions, nor restricts the designer’s freedom from exploring new techniques, nor restricts the use of equipment’. The design process is actively encouraged – although the designer must take the information and then design appropriately. EN 12464 contains lots of figures.You could be forgiven for thinking numbers are the only way forward. Some figures are higher than in other
guidance; for example, EN 12464 gives 500 lux, (rather than the usual UK range of between 300 and 500 lux), as a minimum level for an office space. It is therefore vital you have a design conversation to balance such information. Perhaps it would be useful to revisit why the numbers exist: visual acuity. The recommended lux level is generated by task and duration. The figures therefore reflect the average experience. However, the recommended lux levels do not reflect the individual human condition – they do not factor in how much you drank last night, whether you love or hate your job or how many phone calls you take. Office products on the market, such as adjustable monitor arms and task chairs, show how important it is to consider
individual requirements – and lighting design needs to take a similar approach. BCO FIT-OUT GUIDE At just one-and-a-half pages long, the BCO Fit-Out Guide is much more accessible. Published largely by non-lighting people, the document gives a more holistic view of the office space. The document states that: ‘The main design objective of office lighting is the creation of a comfortable, stimulating visual environment by careful control of surface brightness and contrast ratios. This also requires management of natural light. Design guidance is no longer prescriptive and allows considerable freedom for a suitably qualified and experienced designer to produce certified compliant schemes of the quality required.’
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1 & 2. Visualisations show how a standard office or reception space can be enhanced by creative lighting effects 3. Simple colour-changing LED strips add interest to the reception of the EDF Energy call centre in Exeter 4. LEDs are also used in the reception area, to light a curved, opalised glass block 3.
So, lighting is about user comfort and design is key – not just a bunch of numbers on a page. The approach has largely moved from lighting engineering to lighting design. We can, of course, still use engineering principles but within a design process – which is good news for architects. The design instinct within the architect should, in any case, react against the lighting-engineering approach. This instinct should detect that there is something wrong, for example, when this approach is in danger of creating a static environment with light not distributed around the space but concentrated on the desk. To design an office environment successfully, five people should ideally be involved in the process: the developer funding the project;
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the architect or interior designer responsible for the interior realm; the M&E consultant; the employer who is going to pay people to work in the environment; and the employee who is going to work there. All should have discussions with the lighting designer. But, because of the nature of speculative offices, the employer and employee are often unknown. It is therefore usually the architect, client and lighting designer who design the scheme and in these cases it is crucial that the lighting designer steps up. The BCO guidelines encourage this step. LG7 ‘LIGHTING OF OFFICES’ As its title ‘Lighting Guide 3 (LG3): The Visual Environment for Display-Screen Use’ suggests, LG3 addressed any area where display screens were
used. LG7 is about office lighting and amalgamates previous guidance. LG7 places an emphasis on visual interest – it states: ‘… a lit environment can be created for each office space that not only provides the required levels of lighting for each task but also provides an interesting and stimulating lit environment for people to work in.’ LG7 also recognises that different office templates – for example, open plan, cellular or deep plan – require different approaches. It also recognises the importance of contrast ratio in deep-plan offices. For example, if you are seated 6m from a window, you can work in a combination of natural and artificial light. Further towards the core you will have less daylight and therefore artificial lighting should be
increased to compensate. However, it is argued that because of the high lux level of daylight (about 2,000 lux), the base lighting level should be increased from 300 lux to 500 lux to address issues associated with contrast ratio. The energy-saving benefits of daylight linking will be lost if this approach is adopted – what energy savings you make by decreasing artificial light by the window you lose by increasing artificial lighting further into the building. I would question this approach. The point is to create a good environment and this is not about lux levels – it is about putting light in the right places. A stumbling block with placing light is that people do not generally engage with multi-product solutions – they are discouraged by either the
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5 & 6. Bringing the outside in: the Apex Plaza refurbishment for the Prudential's Reading building includes a combination of buried LED uplighters, embedded LEDs and Hess columns. The blue glow is created using Prismex by Lucite 6.
increased costs or the effort required. It is unlikely that one product will light the ceiling, walls and desk successfully – you need different products to perform different functions. Also, despite claims from manufacturers, there was no such thing as an LG3 compliant fitting and now there is no such thing as an LG7 compliant fitting. It is spaces, not fittings, that are LG3 or LG7 compliant. It is not about the fitting but where it is positioned. A key change (and you may be forgiven for feeling that it’s just semantics) between the LG3 addendum and the new LG7 is the specific wording about intensity and angles of output. The limit of intensity is set at 1,500 cd/m2 but the angle at which this intensity is measured is clarified in the newer LG7 document.
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FITTING IN THE ANGLES LG7 states: ‘Luminance limits should be applied at and above a 65º angle of elevation where the screens in the area are not tilted back beyond 15º from the vertical.’ LG3 Addendum said exactly the same. The significance of the 65° angle is a relic from the past. In order to guarantee absolutely no glare on glareintolerant screens when VDTs first came into the work place, intensity and angle were restricted to 200cd/m2 at 65°. This meant that very little light could come out above this angle and this harsh cut-off resulted in a third of the wall being in darkness and little inter-reflection onto the ceiling. To get a reasonable level on the desk, fittings had to be close together – approximately 1.8m apart. This created spaces with
lots of light on the desk, but not on the walls. As a result the environments were left looking rather gloomy. Recognising advances in screen technology, the LG3 addendum removed the limit of 200 cd/m2; instead the limit was raised to 1,500cd/m2, (providing the correct screen and software are used). Now, with the advent of LG7, the limits can be applied over a higher angle than 65º. Increasing the angle means that the space between the fittings can be increased, and therefore the number of fittings reduced. This is good in terms of energy. Fittings can now be placed up to 3m apart and therefore approximately 25-30 per cent fewer fittings are used in total. In short, higher angles equals more output equals less fittings equals
energy saving. (Though the downside could be a possible increase in unit cost.) However, beware of the guidance regarding cellular offices. LG7 suggests that if you put in a cellular office, you then have to increase the number of fittings but decrease the wattage – which isobviously bad news for designers but good news for manufacturers! PLAY FAIR Knowledge is power and can be used to confuse or frighten the client. Designers can take two approaches. We either can scare the client with rules and regs or, and I prefer this method, we can tell them the regulations are guides and then give them professional design advice based on these.
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CASE STUDY National Air Traffic Services Corporate and Technical Centre, Hampshire Architect: Aukett Interior Designer: Pringle Brandon The office provides a workspace for approximately 1,400 staff and comprises office space, a gym, restaurant and rest spaces. Hoare Lea Lighting did the lighting design.
RECEPTION AND MEETING AREAS The atmosphere created in the reception and meeting areas is more akin to a hotel than an office space. Clean and simple, the emphasis within this area is on light pattern. The company provides the UK’s airtraffic-control service, confidentiality is obviously important. Space within the reception area enables meetings to take place without visitors entering the office space. A circular downlight by Wila provides general lighting to the space. This gives a moody effect, while its opal surround adds interest. Within the meeting space, asymmetric lighting on the panels between the meeting areas gives a domestic feel. A tube pendant – the cylinder from Concord:marlin – over the circular tables adds to this atmosphere. A colour-changing wall runs from the ground to the second floor, adding to the visual impression.
THE ATRIUM The feature staircase forms the dominant vertical element within the atrium and a secondary reflector lighting system from Siteco lights this area. This consists of projectors mounted at low level, aimed at secondary reflector mirrors mounted in the ceiling to redirect the light down into the atrium. The advantage of the system is that it provides uniform light over large areas. As light sources are mounted at a low level, the system is easy to maintain (this contrasts with typical atrium lighting that would usually require cherrypickers or hoist equipment to maintain).
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BREAKOUT AREAS Comfortable breakout areas are located throughout the first- and second-floor circulation spaces. A downlighter with dropped glass adds brightness and creates light pattern on the ceiling. Coffee points, pleasant areas lit by asymmetric downlighters from Fagerhult, are situated throughout the space. The Glo-ball by Flos adds a dramatic decorative extra to the area.
RESTAURANT The lighting in the restaurant creates a restaurant ambience rather than that of an internal ‘staff canteen’. The open space is lit by Fagerhult’s Notor 1 x 35W T5 uplight luminaire, continuously mounted to provide uniform lighting pattern on the ceiling. Lit columns in the space provide feature lighting. The alcoves are lit by a cube pendant fitting – the Cuby – from DJ Lighting, which creates an intimate environment. The servery is lit by dynamic narrowbeamed HIB downlighters, Pixel Plus, from iGuzzini. This combines with the chrome finish to create a bright, sparkly feature.
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OFFICE SPACE The open-plan office is a clean, contemporary bright space with a high degree of uplight. Primary lighting is with Fagerhult’s suspended Looplight system, which combines minimal impact with the technical performance for the uplighting requirements. The Looplight luminaires are mounted at 90º to the desks, to avoid any glare or direct view of the lamp, and their location (running down the space) reduces the possibility of incidental brightness. This direct/indirect linear pendant supplies task and ceiling luminance and is supported by Fagerhult’s Sidelight to meet vertical luminance requirements. The Looplight also houses the PIRs for the Prolojik lighting-control system, in a slightly extended part of the extruded body. The PIRs are used for both presence and daylight detection and are part of the decentralised lighting-control system, which negated the need for an expensive front-end buildingmanagement system. Fagerhult’s Pleiad downlights have decorative hover glass and light the corridors and general core areas. The combined use of the three products successfully lights the desk, the vertical surfaces and the ceiling.
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TOP FIVE OFFICE LIGHTING PRODUCTS The key technical issues for choosing any fitting are lamp way (lumen output) and LOR (light output ratio). LOR tells you how efficient the fitting is at allowing the light generated by the lamp to exit the fitting and is given as a percentage. So, anoraks on, and into the fray. In no particular order:
362 SERIES FROM TRILUX Lamp way – 2/3 x 24W T5 (600 x 600) 2 x 28 (1,200 x 300) LOR: 67 per cent (0.67) Projecting slightly from the ceiling (61mm), the simple design creates the all-important visual brightness across the ceiling by having luminous sections either side of the light delivering UXP-Technology louvre optic. Modularity is a key element with fittings available from 600 x 600mm to 1,500 x 300mm and sizes in-between.
KOMETA FROM CONCORD:MARLIN Lamp way: 1 x 32W TC-T + 40W Circular T5 LOR: 61 per cent Kometa offers an innovative workplace lighting solution, which also answers the technical challenge of illuminating major room surfaces from one luminaire. A key design feature is its potential for light-pattern variation, with the different elements of the downlight and the ambient ring being controllable individually. Ceiling projection (54mm), two lamp ways (32W TC-T in the downlight and the 40W TS in an opal drum) give the opportunity for separate dimming, allowing variation in luminaire light pattern.
QUADRATURE FROM SITECO Lamp way: from 4 x 14W T5 to 2 x 54W T5 and all stops in between LOR: 70 per cent The major feature of the latest Quadrature generation is the newly developed all-microprismatic Eldacon plate. This means the visual appearance of the prismatic structures is now unbroken. Glare-free Eldacon microprismatic technology makes the range especially suited to lighting situations such as those at computer and CAD workstations and video conference rooms. This is a light-control technology in which the light provided by the T5 fluorescent lamps is directed into the room via microprisms.
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READER ENQUIRIES CONCORD:MARLIN DJ LIGHTING ETAP LIGHTING FAGERHULT FLOS IGUZZINI PROLOJIK SITECO TRILUX WILA ZUMTOBEL
1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510
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MELLOW LIGHT IV FROM ZUMTOBEL STAFF LIGHTING Lamp way: 2 x 24W T5 (600 x 600) 2 x 28W (1,200 x 300) LOR: 59 per cent (with mesh) or 75 per cent (with louvre) A minimalist semi-recessed luminaire that complements the subtleties and changing nature of daylight. The luminaire emits even light distribution across the primary visual surfaces, giving an impression of increased brightness without increased energy consumption. All-round glare control protects the eye from the light source at all angles.
UM1 WITH MESOOPTICS FROM ETAP LIGHTING Lamp way: 2 x 24W T5 (600 x 600) or 2 x28W T5/2 x 54W (1,200 x 300) LOR: 83 per cent MesoOptics is an innovative technology that allows a very fine micro-structure to be created that spreads light in a controlled manner. There are hardly any reflections because of the thin film. These optics have an efficiency of 92 per cent. UM1 luminaires with MesoOptics have a higher efficiency (30 per cent) than traditional diffusers. Fewer luminaires are therefore required, as is less installed power.
Dominic Meyrick is lighting principal at Hoare Lea Lighting
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