Lighting Journal February 2021 by The ILP

Professional best practice from the Institution of Lighting Professionals

February 2021

LIGHTING COVENTRY How Coventryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public realm is being transformed ahead of it becoming UK City of Culture CITY SHAPING The complexities, and rewards, of creating a city lighting masterplan totally from scratch HITTING THE HEIGHTS Unpicking the challenges of maintaining high-mast lighting at sports grounds

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Contents LIGHTING 06 COVENTRY

Coventry is set to be the UK’s City of Culture from May, an opportunity that has allowed its civic spaces and public realm to be rethought, and re-illuminated, to stunning effect, as Andy Hart explains

10SOCIAL LANDSCAPING

From empty offices to struggling high streets, from more outdoor activities through to socially distanced gatherings, Covid-19 has changed how we use and think about our urban spaces. Richard Morris outlines how a new report has assessed the role light and lighting may be able to play in this rapidly evolving new world

16 CITY SHAPING

It is not often as a lighting professional that you’ll get the chance to work with a completely blank canvas for a whole city. But this is precisely the opportunity neolight global has had when developing a lighting masterplan for the as-yet-unbuilt Qiddiya ‘entertainment city’ in Saudi Arabia. Alan Mitchell and Gary Thornton report

Stockholm’s Nobel Week Lights in December was a much-needed celebration of light during a year when the pandemic meant light festivals were few and far between

NOBEL PURPOSE

WORK, PLACE, HEALTH

KEEPING THE COGS 38TURNING

It is now almost exactly a year since Covid-19 turned how and where we work upside down. Lighting designers Maryam Aghajani and Johannes Stahl reflect on some of the profound changes wrought by the pandemic and what it might mean for how we light workplaces and working spaces

Wirral Council’s massive transition to LED street lighting will result in significant energy savings when it is fully completed later this year. But keeping it pushing forward during a year of pandemic lockdowns and supply chain interruptions proved a business continuity challenge for everyone involved

THE 34 HITTING HEIGHTS

40 PRESSURE POINTERS

Maintaining high-mast lighting, such as that at sports grounds, brings with it quite specific challenges around access and safety. But, as Darren Pearce and Chris Anderson show, it is also about recognising that, irrespective of the luminaire, mast and column maintenance needs to be an ongoing, long-term priority

DIVINE™

The government’s decision to bring forward the deadline for stopping the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by a decade, to 2030, is set to accelerate the UK’s transition to electric vehicles. As Dave Hodgkins explains, this means the challenges and opportunities associated with ensuring our EV charging infrastructure keeps pace will also accelerate

44 SOLAR SYSTEMS

Solar lighting is becoming a more popular, and specified, solution on UK high streets. But how can you be confident you are specifying the appropriate products or correct components? Neil Purdue offers a stepby-step guide

46 xMADE IN CHELSEA

A bespoke heritage lighting column, yet also totally up to date with cameras and Wi Fi, is at the heart of the public walkway illumination for the new Chelsea Barracks residential development in London’s Belgravia. We spoke to Nulty’s Paul Nulty about the project

49 xDIRECTORY

p COVER PICTURE

A close-up of the new illuminated water feature in Bull Yard, Coventry, part of the spectacular preparations for becoming City of Culture from May. Turn to page six for the full story

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Editor’s letter

Volume 86 No 2 February 2021 President Anthony Smith IEng FILP Chief Executive Tracey White Editor Nic Paton BA (Hons) MA Email: nic@cormorantmedia.co.uk

Lighting Journal’s content is chosen and evaluated by volunteers on our reader panel, peer review group and a small representative group which holds focus meetings responsible for the strategic direction of the publication. If you would like to volunteer to be involved, please contact the editor. We also welcome reader letters to the editor. Design Tolu Akinyemi B.Tech MSc Email: tolu@matrixprint.com

Advertising Manager Andy Etherton Email: andy@matrixprint.com Published by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd on behalf of Institution of Lighting Professionals Regent House, Regent Place, Rugby CV21 2PN Telephone: 01788 576492 E-mail: info@theilp.org.uk Website: www.theilp.org.uk Produced by Matrix Print Consultants Ltd Unit C,Northfield Point, Cunliffe Drive, Kettering, Northants NN16 9QJ Tel: 01536 527297 Email: gary@matrixprint.com Website: www.matrixprint.com © ILP 2021

The views or statements expressed in these pages do not necessarily accord with those of The Institution of Lighting Professionals or the Lighting Journal’s editor. Photocopying of Lighting Journal items for private use is permitted, but not for commercial purposes or economic gain. Reprints of material published in these pages is available for a fee, on application to the editor.

f I’m honest, the last time I was in Coventry, for an overnight visit about four years ago, it didn’t exactly bowl me over. It’s not a city I know well, and so perhaps I missed some architectural gems, but much of what I saw felt uncompromising (and not in a good way), tired and a bit ‘left behind’. Now, however, if it weren’t for the fact the vast majority of the UK is of course back in lockdown, I’d love to make a return visit. The sheer passion for the city and its potential that came through from my conversation with Andy Hart, and which led to our article in this edition from page six, was inspiring. Andy’s article also shows, first, the genuine catalysing effect that being named City of Culture can have on a city, with 2017 beneficiary Hull reporting a hugely positive legacy from its year (albeit pre any subsequent impact from coronavirus) [1]. It has to be hoped that Coventry will experience a similar ‘bounce’ from the investment and interest that comes from being UK City of Culture from May. Second, for me, it shows the massively important role that light and lighting can play in this sort of widescale urban regeneration; how, in effect, lighting can act as something of the glue that connects initiatives, schemes and projects and helps to create a renewed sense of identity and community. Kudos, too, to Coventry City Council for recognising this and not leaving lighting as an add-on afterthought. The sheer scale of the works means our intention is to revisit Coventry at various points during this year to focus more deeply on some of the individual regeneration elements underway. I’m as interested and intrigued as anyone to find out more about how Coventry is being reshaped and remade. So, in short, watch this space. To an extent, urban shaping – urban place-making if you will – is something of a theme running through this edition. From Alan Mitchell’s and Gary Thornton’s fascinating report on how they developed a lighting masterplan, from scratch, for the as-yet-unbuilt Qiddiya ‘entertainment city’ in Saudi Arabia (from page 16) through to Richard Morris’ very timely discussion about town centre regeneration (from page ten) it is very clear light and lighting can play – in fact needs to play – a central role here. However, and sadly, there is also something of a Covid-19-shaped shadow hanging over all this. From where I’m sitting – at time of writing in early January – there’s very much a sense that we’re currently in the darkest hour before (hopefully) a vaccine-led dawn. As we gradually this year emerge from the scarring effects of the pandemic, there is going to be a need for a massive reconstruction and regeneration effort for whole swathes of the economy. Our ravaged high streets, in particular, are likely to be in need of some serious TLC – and lighting could, and probably should, play a central part. As Maryam Aghajani and Johannes Stahl discuss from page 26, after the year we’ve just had there will also need to be careful thought given to how we design, and light, our workplaces and work spaces of the future. I very much hope lighting professionals – and ILP members – will be at the heart of these discussions and that light and lighting can play a pivotal role in helping us all to recover from the experience of the pandemic. Nic Paton Editor [1] ‘Hull works towards securing its City of Culture legacy’, The Guardian, June 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/ uk-news/2019/jun/08/hull-works-towards-securing-its-city-of-culture-legacy

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LIGHTING COVENTRY Coventry is set to be the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s City of Culture from May, an opportunity that has allowed its civic spaces and public realm to be rethought, and re-illuminated, to stunning effect

By Andy Hart

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Public realm lighting

ince 2 0 1 7, w h e n Coventry was awarded UK City of Culture, we’ve been working hard at Coventry City Council to regenerate the public realm of the city, with lighting very much at the heart of this transformation. The old city of Coventry was, of course, devastated during World War Two, with the ruined shell of Coventry Cathedral – the Cathedral Church of St Michael to give it its full name – left as it was following the bombing to become an iconic symbol of the city’s survival and rebirth. But that also meant Coventry developed a reputation for its brutal post-war architectural landscape. That, too, is now changing, with much work and investment having taken place to improve the city’s retail heart and public spaces. For the City of Culture, £44m of funding has been provided by the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership to regenerate large parts of the city, creating a legacy for local people.

YEAR-LONG PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Like most things last year, Covid-19 has made its impact felt, in that the City of Culture was originally due to start last month (January) but now will be getting underway from May. There will also be a 365-day cultural and events programme alongside a signature launch event in May, which will bring together thousands of residents in a spectacle presented across hundreds of locally built structures. In terms of regeneration, there is a lighting project underway in Greyfriars Green, the grassed area as you walk into the city from the railway station. Work is now complete in Bull Yard and there is impressive new lighting in Pepper Lane. We are relighting the Upper Precinct shopping area where we will pay homage to the original ‘Festival of Britain’ lanterns as well as creating some beautifully lit

fountains a n d relighting t h e c i t y ’s iconic three spires: Holy T r i n i t y , Christchurch House and St Michael’s. As a lighting professional, the scale of the regeneration is a huge opportunity to shape – and reshape – the public realm of Coventry, not just for this year but for decades to come. To that end, during 2021 we will, through Lighting Journal, be looking regularly to update ILP members on different elements of the project, including explaining in more detail some of the thinking, challenges and learning that has come about.

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Public realm lighting RETHINKING CIVIC PERCEPTIONS

p This image and previous page: Whittle Arch in Coventry. Below: the water feature in Bull Yard, in front of Christchurch Spire

DYNAMIC LIGHTING SCENES

To give an initial flavour, however, with Greyfriars Green we’ve installed a series GOBO units per column, through which, working with Architainment Lighting, Balfour Beatty Living Places and Speirs Major, we’ve been able to create vivid, dynamic lighting scenes. In fact, because we’re using red, green, blue and white LED, we’ve calculated we have www.theilp.org.uk

approximately 52 million options to choose from! We’ve got Christmas effects in blues and greens and reds; we’ve looked at things like Halloween effects, so we can bring people into the city via a Halloween trail. The huge range of options available to us at the touch of a button means we can ensure that walking routes are impressive, immersive and surprising! There is already a programme underway to mark special occasions, such as Remembrance Sunday, St George’s Day and both national and international awareness days. In Bull Yard, there is a new illuminated water feature and, working with Urbis Schréder, we’ve installed bespoke three-legged lighting columns which, in fact, are now being marketed as ‘the Coventry column’. Kids can swing around them; they can walk through them; we’ve really pushed the boundaries. We’ve also had some really good feedback. We’ve had people saying, ‘it is like War of the Worlds’ or ‘it is like a Pink Floyd video’. It has created a real talking point. They are functional too, of course. And that’s exactly what we wanted! In the main shopping area, we’ve got a balustrade area that originally had some 1950s’ GEC fittings, and some Festival of Britain fittings. We’ve taken these down and, working with local company Candela Traditional Lighting, we’ve scanned them, created computer-generated mock-ups and then recreated them; so we now have 1956 lanterns with 21st century technology in them.

We’ve got 20 columns going in, along with planter lights, inground tree lighting and bench lighting. From research around the Equality Act, we discovered that bench lighting can, actually, be very good for people who are partially sighted as well as people with dementia, so every bench now has a lighting unit within it. We have installed lights on approximately 40 trees but, rather than just lighting the branches or just throwing lighting into the canopy, we’ve illuminated the trunks. As soon as you start thinking that way, that creatively, anything can be achieved. All of a sudden, the way people see things, and the pride they feel in their city, takes off. It is about restoring a sense of pride, a sense of destination, into your public realm. City of Culture will give us a great year to remember but beyond that the way we use, celebrate and enjoy the city centre will continue and that includes enjoying some fantastic lighting. Watch this space for our next article!

THE UK CITY OF CULTURE COMPETITION

UK City of Culture is a competition run by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, writes Nic Paton. Every four years, cities compete to be awarded the prestigious title, with the first UK City of Culture being awarded to Derry/Londonderry in 2013 followed by Hull in 2017. The title brings with it an opportunity to place your city on a national and international stage, including, as we are seeing with Coventry, an opportunity to showcase your lighting infrastructure. Coventry was awarded the title in December 2017 after competing against 11 other cities. Its ‘year’ will run from May (as explained above, delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic) through to May 2022.

Andy Hart is consultant project manager working for Coventry City Council

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SOCIAL LANDSCAPING From empty offices to struggling high streets, from more outdoor activities through to socially distanced gatherings, Covid-19 has changed how we use and think about our urban spaces. A new report has assessed the role light and lighting may be able to play in this rapidly evolving world

By Richard Morris

p The Park, Las Vegas, one of 16 case studies highlighted within the Arup report that showcase how lighting can help us to rethink our public realm

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting

ast year, we all know, brought unprecedented challenges to many people and many industries, lighting among them. But the events of last year, especially the months of lockdown, also allowed many within lighting to step back, reflect, and think about the role of light and lighting within the public realm. This was highlighted within Lighting Journal (‘Dark design’, September 2020, vol 85 no 8 and ‘Remaking the night’, July/ August 2020, vol 85 no 7). But it is also something that we at Arup have been focusing on, not least in a report we published during the autumn. The role of lighting in supporting town centre regeneration and economic recovery makes the argument that, yes, the Covid-19 pandemic brought challenges both for people and society, but the response to the virus has merely accelerated changes that were already underway, and how we use and think about our relationship with urban spaces after dark.

•

POTENTIALLY PERMANENT CHANGES

From increased home working emptying many city centres through to online shopping decimating high street retail; from landmarks, offices and shopfronts becoming dark and shuttered during lockdowns through to greater use of outdoor spaces, active travel by bike or on foot and the need for socially distanced gatherings, Covid-19 is transforming our urban environment, perhaps permanently, in ways we are only beginning to understand. What role, then, can lighting play in these seismic changes? Our report argues that lighting can contribute in many ways to easing pre- and post-Covid challenges that town centres are facing. For example: •

Lighting can be crucial to support a transition from functional interventions focused on public safety, such as temporary wider walkways and bike lanes, into something that is part of a

•

longer-term recovery plan, one that supports night-time economies by unlocking outdoor social spaces for night-time use and events, improving night-time journeys and so on. Lighting can play a pivotal role in revitalising high streets and town centres by enhancing the attractiveness of the environment, improving perceptions of safety, and ultimately increasing footfall, dwell time and spend. It can help extend the hours of use of the town centre, especially for bridging the gap between retail closure and leisure opening. Lighting interventions can create performance space for community and professional use; facilitating the human connections that build community resilience. In the long term, these can be developed into permanent facilities promoting sustained economic and social benefits in the daytime and after dusk. Lighting is an intervention that can provide cost-effective solutions that can ensure a quick win for authorities and developers looking to make improvements. Over the years, more and more local governments have hosted light festivals to support the local economy, particularly during seasonal ‘slumps’ and the winter periods, promoting the night-time economy on a temporary basis. These events are particularly relevant in towns with a developed or developing tourist industry. Light festivals are a cost-effective mechanism to attract significant increase in visitors, particularly out-of-town visitors, and increase revenue generated for local businesses.

INCENTIVISING PEOPLE TO ENGAGE WITH THE NIGHT

As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, our night-time trends will most likely change; perhaps altering our habitual social

p Figure 1: The four key steps to be thinking about when it comes to using lighting to achieve a town’s regeneration objectives

timings as businesses increase flexible working practices, or home workers join colleagues later in the evening to socialise. We may need incentivising to leave our homes and spend money after dusk. People will need to perceive a safe journey into town and feel welcome and secure when they arrive. People will want to feel comfortable to dwell in and support night-time economies. Our report highlights nine challenges that we identify as being at the heart of town centre regeneration. These range from, for example, attracting people safely and supporting community to our connections with nature and heritage. The report also articulates four key steps that we believe towns, authorities, municipalities and the industry need to be thinking about when it comes to effectively using lighting to achieve a town’s regeneration objectives. These are presented in the figure 1, but are: scoping, context/appraisal, conceptualisation, and the business case. The key for all parties is to understand the importance and value of lighting as a key element in any town centre regeneration plan and embrace it as a sustainable asset for economic recovery. We need to be getting the message across to budget-holders and decision-makers in municipalities and local authorities that they need not be daunted by the fact there needs to be more consideration given to lighting within their masterplans. There are plenty of people who can help, not just lighting designers but conservation experts, social value experts and so on. Now is the time for local governments to rethink the value of urban lighting beyond just a functional add-on for safety or beautification; they need to recognise it as a solution for economic recovery, as well as the quality of life for citizens, both during and post pandemic.

LIGHTING INDUSTRY AMBASSADORS

We need to ensure these conversations are looking at, and thinking about, light and lighting; the role light and lighting can play in creating and sustaining spaces for people. And, actually, getting the point across that, often, this will only require a relatively modest investment in the scheme of things. Yes, a council may not have much money (especially this year) but hosting, say, a light festival will in all likelihood generate a return on investment without too great an upfront spend. Then it, in turn, may enhance civic wellbeing and engagement, make your public realm look fantastic and, potentially, encourage people to think and feel differently about their local night-time economy and environment. www.theilp.org.uk

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting Where the council or development corporation is overseeing investment in regeneration projects using private funding, the aim of our report is to help create a dialogue between the authority and the developers to ensure lighting is appropriately and carefully considered, not just for its functionality, but for human and societal needs and most

importantly, for the long term. Ultimately, we as lighting professionals need to become better ambassadors for what we do. We need to work out how to speak the language of decision-makers better. We also need to get to grips with articulating the socio-economic value of what we do better. If we are able to work out and

communicate better what our value is and our economic impact (including our impact post-occupancy), we have a greater chance of being invited to join the higher seat at the decision table in so many aspects of lighting. I hope our report can help us all reflect on the challenges, and opportunities, these changing times may bring.

SIXTEEN CASE STUDIES

structures have been installed, there has been an 8% increase in food sales and a 2% direct increase in revenues in the park.

In September of 2018, phase one of Pulse was revealed, featuring a dynamic line of fog and light that live traces the path of the subway below. This permanent artistic intervention integrates lighting and has catalysed regeneration and revenues to the district with a positive impact on tourism and footfall. The park was appreciated by more than ten million visitors in 2018 alone, held more than 225 events (of which more than 90% were free to enter) and contributed $2.67m annual income to the city centre economy.

Our report includes 16 case studies from around the world designed to highlight how urban lighting can be used to deliver improved socio-economic outcomes. Our argument is that properly considered lighting can positively impact the ‘total architecture’ of our towns, reinforcing urban design principles, enhancing cultural experiences and encouraging social interaction. Our selection, which includes our work on ‘The Concourse’ at the University of Sheffield showcased in the October edition of Lighting Journal (‘University challenge’, vol 85, no 9), is designed to show how sophisticated night-time lighting strategies can be a cost-effective way to improve a wide range of urban aspects such as security, health and the environment. In particular, we argue that lighting can be used to improve liveability, sustainability and economic development through everything from small interventions through to large-scale festivals and lighting masterplanning. Here, then, are snapshots of three of the case studies featured in the report.

DILWORTH PARK

Walking through central Philadelphia at dusk used to bring an edge of uneasiness to the every-day pedestrian. This public plaza once teaming with life and activity, fell underutilised by a lack of design provocation and public programming. In 2014, the city decided it was time for a change. Dilworth Plaza was transformed into Dilworth Park, a lustrous green space featuring a splash fountain, ice skating rink, new lighting and outdoor dining. In addition to the redesign of the square, Studio Echelman was commissioned to design and implement a first-of-its-kind public art piece called ‘Pulse’.

CROYDON AND LEWISHAM STREET LIGHTING PFI

In 2011, the Croydon & Lewisham Street Lighting project was developed to replace the ageing street stock of both London boroughs. The project included

THE PARK, LAS VEGAS

Here (and pictured on page ten), MGM Resorts has re-imagined the traditional pedestrian experience by creating a dynamic destination located just off the famed Las Vegas Strip, with curated spaces. In car-dominated environments, encouraging dwell can be challenging. Lighting paired with simple sculptural interventions can create a point of focus; promoting social gathering and spend. To build anticipation and incentivise visits to the park, the coloured light echoes a monumental cactus blossom every 15 minutes on the hour. The colours are visible through the leaves of the park’s trees all the way to ‘The Strip’, creating a social gathering space. Since the 16 illuminated shade

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p Dilworth Park, showing the ‘Pulse’ public art work. A dynamic and green space has been created from what was previously a run-down and slightly threatening part of Philadelphia

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Public realm lighting the replacement of approximately 46,000 streetlights and traffic signs over five-year period. Prior to the intervention, the area had suffered from poor street lighting levels, as well as outdated and inefficient lighting infrastructure. The project replaced the existing street lighting, illuminated signs and outdated yellow/orange lighting with the greater rendition of white lighting, enhanced perception of safety and generally improved street lighting levels. More significantly, it moved away from a ‘brighter-is-better’ approach to planning and installing lighting that improved illumination but also provided a more

MPS FOCUS ON NIGHT ECONOMY

Following hard on the heels of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dark Skies, as highlighted in last month’s Lighting Journal, MPs in Westminster have now moved to create an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Night-Time Economy, writes Nic Paton. The group is being chaired by Labour MP Jeff Smith, who worked as an events www.theilp.org.uk

flexible and sustainable solution. This included introducing CMS to control illumination levels and optimise energy consumption. The result? For every £1 invested, an economic benefit equivalent to £7.36 has been realised. The upgraded infrastructure has delivered significant efficient savings in capital replacement and maintenance. The more centralised and controllable installation has allowed for service management objectives to include sustainability goals for the first time. The improved street lighting provides better access to local services and transport, in turn allowing for greater public interaction and, again in turn, has a positive influence on the two town centres.

manager and DJ before entering politics, and is intending to highlight what it termed ‘the existential threat’ faced by the night-time industry sector. The ILP, which has a friendship agreement with the International Nighttime Design Initiative, has said it is keen to work with the new APPG to promote the role, and value, of lighting within the night-time economy.

FIND OUT MORE

The full report The role of lighting in supporting town centre regeneration and economic recovery can be downloaded at: www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/promotional-materials/ section/the-role-of-lighting-in-supporting-town-centre-regeneration-and-economic-recovery

Richard Morris is associate lighting designer at Arup

The new APPG will be supported by the Night Time Industries Association, which will provide industry insight and secretariat services to the group. Jeff Smith said: ‘We will be working hard to ensure that this usually viable, thriving and world-leading sector can not only survive the Covid crisis, but prepare for a prosperous, long-term recovery.’

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CITY SHAPING It is not often as a lighting professional that you’ll get the chance to work with a completely blank canvas for a whole city. But this is precisely the opportunity neolight global has had when developing a lighting masterplan for the as-yet-unbuilt Qiddiya ‘entertainment city’ in Saudi Arabia. By Alan Mitchell and Gary Thornton

t is not uncommon for a city to have a lighting masterplan, or at least a set of guidelines for how lighting to the public realm should be applied. Yet most, if not all, of the cities that do are already built when that plan is developed. A lighting masterplan for an already built and inhabited city will always be playing catch up, applying the strategy to the existing spaces, buildings and behaviours of its people. Even though it is a positive move to provide a lighting masterplan, it is generally more of a reactive approach, one that is addressing established behaviours and how spaces are already defined. It is also often about navigating parameters such as existing buildings or roads and the fact these cities still need to remain habitable and useable during the time in which any changes are implemented. To that end, it is rare to have the opportunity to design and provide a lighting masterplan right at the beginning, as part of the core design team for a brand new city that has not yet been built – but that was precisely the opportunity we were recently given for a project in Saudi Arabia. The project is the Qiddiya Area Development, a 334km2 plot located approximately 40km outside Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The scheme is part of the ‘Saudi Vision 2030’, with Qiddiya being hailed an immersive destination, an ‘entertainment city’ that will become the kingdom’s capital of entertainment, sports and the arts. Since the ground-breaking ceremony in April 2018, Phase 1 of key sites and landmark locations are advancing to a grand opening in 2023, with Phases 2 and 3 of the area development, as it expands and grows, up to 2030. At neolight global, we were appointed as the specialist lighting designers for master-planning the lighting across the entire

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting

area development site as well as detailing the lighting design to the landscape. There are many positives, of course, to being involved right at the beginning of a project, an argument for which lighting designers are all too familiar. However, when dealing with a project of this scale, being in right at the beginning can also create its own challenges, simply because it comes with many unknowns. On the other hand, it is precisely because of these unknowns that you are not constrained in the same way as you would typically be when applying a masterplan to an already built city. Looking at the Qiddiya project, about one third of the site is being developed into several areas, all shaped and located by the historic flow of the wadi (or riverbed) routes that trace the site (as these images opposite show). Once our team had taken our first visit to the site, we discovered the reality of the vast rocky desert terrain that awaited our strategy in comparison to the polished CGIs that had originally been envisioned. Early on, it became apparent there were going to be a number of challenges to masterplan the lighting for a city without the usual parameters. Our role, therefore, became one of ensuring that well-designed and well-considered lighting formed a core part of the design of the city, and not something that was considered much later in the design process.

p Original CGIs from the masterplan architect. Images by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) q The original site, illustrating its rocky terrain, the iconic cliffs of the Tuwaiq Mountains and the historic wadi (or riverbed) lines

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Public realm lighting THE CITY CENTRE

As a still-unbuilt space, we have had the benefit of being able to put light exactly where it is needed and where it enhances the design, not responding to the learned behaviour of people or reacting to how spaces within a city have organically come to be used. In addition to the basic requirements of lighting providing safety and security, we have been able to use lighting to prioritise and support pedestrian activity at the centre of the city â&#x20AC;&#x201C; simply because there arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t any roads that have been built yet. We have been able to integrate lighting to give a cohesive hierarchy of brightness, to reinforce an emerging night-time identity, to enhance visual interest through the balance of light and shadow, and to build in provisions for public art and events. In parallel with the actual masterplan document, we have of course been very aware of the importance of engaging with the stakeholders who would underpin the strategy. Ensuring that key authorities (the people who are, after all, ultimately responsible for ensuring the lighting masterplan gets followed) consistently understand the design intent or why we are stipulating certain elements has enabled us to have confidence

p Illustrative plans to outline the relative brightness and varying colour temperatures used in the public realm

p Illustrative views in defining the primary and secondary routes to be influenced by the lighting hierarchy

The stunning illuminations on the iconic cliffs of the Tuwaiq Mountains for the closing ceremony of the 2020 Dakar Rally last January

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Public realm lighting that our lighting strategy will be implemented and maintained correctly. This is not necessarily about trying to predict what lighting might be in five or ten years’ time, but providing procedures and frameworks that allow for the evaluation of the lighting strategy so that changing needs and advances in technology can be incorporated. With the client and wider stakeholders on board at an early stage, they now understand that the strategy document builds in the ability for self-assessment and, critically, allows it to evolve with the city. The public realm of the city centre itself uses brightness, varying CCT and select aspects of coloured light to define the environment across gateways, landmarks, feature spaces, and circulation routes. The result is a hierarchy of illumination for different times of day, with the lighting able to adapt to activity density and effectively respond to how pedestrians are using the space, guiding and drawing people through spaces with shifting CCT and brightness as part of a holistic design. Outside of the public realm, many of the plots of land are to be developed in the future. Not knowing exactly what these developments will be or how they will evolve, we developed a set of best practice guidelines within the strategy. These will/ should protect the public realm lighting scheme so as to ensure any future lighting to these developments does not impact negatively. Many factors, such as light spill, glare, poorly lit signage or inappropriate use of coloured light, can blight city spaces or ruin even the most well-considered aesthetic. But, by introducing guidance for them as part of the frameworks to the lighting strategy, these guidelines become something for all future developers to work within as they design and construct these buildings, and are therefore not something they have to retrofit or change the lighting for.

THE DARKNESS STRATEGY

Much to the surprise of our client, one thing we were very keen on providing within the lighting strategy was a darkness strategy. This is another benefit of working with a yet-to-be-built city – it is not an existing space where we are advising lights to be turned off or removed; elements of darkness can be introduced as part of the design and spaces can be developed with relative dark and relative light in mind. Shadows and low light are important to the character of a city, not least because the human eye sees more by contrast than outright brightness, but also because not everything needs to be lit. www.theilp.org.uk

p Illustrative views of the roadway network showing a heat map approach of lighting intensity and landscape influence

Darkness is also important to the lighting hierarchy – the brightly lit features and landmarks are only perceived as bright as they are because the overall lighting hierarchy grades down to absolute darkness. Many of these points are elements that lots of lighting designers strive for and often want to include. However, by formalising these into a chapter within the strategy document we have been able to maintain a recognition of the balance of light and dark at a client and stakeholder level for them to take on and ensure both these elements become implemented.

ILLUMINATING AN ICONIC CLIFF

As an early indicator of the project, specialist lighting to illuminate the iconic cliffs of the Tuwaiq Mountains was expedited to meet an existing date: the closing ceremony of the Dakar Rally in January 2020. We worked alongside mechanical engineers Martin Professional Middle East and design studio Barco to design and develop a bespoke projection mapping solution for the cliffs, which sit as a focal point for the mountains. Following successful mock-ups to determine distances, brightness and coverage, a total of 84 highly efficient 40,000 lumen laser projectors were housed in bespoke containers in the landscape to map the face of the cliff. The result spectacularly transformed the cliff face and, by covering a massive 32,000m², in fact holds the record for the largest permanent projection mapping in the world!

LIGHTING ROADWAYS

One vital element of the Qiddiya project is its roadways, which encompass more than 100km across nine main routes. The illumination for such a vast undertaking involved substantial coordination with multiple parties, not least the kingdom’s Ministry of Transport. Upon our appointment, the ministry issued us with a highway design manual, which turned out to be from the late 1980s and stipulated the use of high-pressure sodium lamps or, in exceptional cases only, the use of metal halide! Our questioning of this prompted a reconsideration, thankfully, and, in fact, led to a series of studies and analysis that refined routes and junctions, with consideration for the illumination being deemed a contributing discipline alongside all other consultants. It was at this stage that everyone involved really started to take note of the importance and power of lighting, a real tipping point of understanding the value that lighting adds even at a ‘pre-city’ stage. With a masterplan to a built city these roadways would of course already exist, meaning a substantial cost and impact to alter them. But for a roadway network that doesn’t physically exist yet we were able to use lighting as a tool to help define and support decisions. Fast forward a few months and we have an agreed use of CIE 115 as the lighting standard, with the Ministry of Transport (MoT) issuing an ‘LED addendum’ to its roadway standards and a developed focus

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Public realm lighting

p Overview of the connected roadway lighting system for adaptive dimming and IoT sensors

that the lighting to the roadways should be in balance with the landscape and incredible natural environment. The updated MoT standard is called Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Transport Lighting Specifications ‘LED’ Roads [1]. Part of this focus is the use of Doppler radar sensors for adaptive dimming, combining vehicle detection with DALI-2 SR drivers and linking everything to a central control room as part of a site-wide fibre optic network. This type of connectivity is something that would be expensive and inconvenient to retrofit but, again, is another benefit of working to an unbuilt city – there are no physical constraints yet that prevent this.

IMAGINING A SMART CITY

Another fantastic opportunity this project has offered at a macro level is the ability to leverage the power of the Internet of Things and the potential of smart cities. Instead of smaller projects or retrofit pilots, such as we are starting to see around the world, Qiddiya could be one of the first cities built from the ground up as a genuine smart city, with connectivity built into the fabric of the city, designed into its architecture as well as into its light fixtures. By including a proper smart infrastructure, the city can function as ‘smart’ without the compromise of retrofit add-ons. It stands to reason that, if a city is sufficiently provisioned for connectivity, then it can provide a

platform for almost anything moving forward. Lighting is of course key to implementing any kind of smart city strategy because it is one of the few elements regularly spaced throughout a city with power and, increasingly, data connections already attributed. Moreover, a connected lighting network removes the need for separate, additional networks to be installed while the physicality of urban light fixtures means all manner of sensors can be integrated within them too. Streetlights no longer become just light fixtures, they act as sensor points, data nodes and Bluetooth beacons connecting to the wider city network.

PROJECT CREDITS

Client: Qiddiya Investment Company Lead consultant and landscape design: EDSA Specialist lighting and lighting masterplan: neolight global Mechanical engineering/ electrical engineering/QS: KEO International Consultants Engineering/sustainability/ smart strategy: Dar Al-Handasah

CONCLUSIONS

Having submitted the second draft of the lighting strategy we await the rubber stamp approvals from the client and governing authorities. If nothing else, this project has been a real insight into the time it takes for political validation with as many involved parties as we have! This document will then provide the strategy for the lighting to the entire area development as part of the wider masterplan strategy for all disciplines. It will be provided for all future designers and consultants to take the site from its current state to fulfilling the vision we all have of this brand new city, something that has been an amazing opportunity and privilege to develop.

Alan Mitchell is managing/creative director and Gary Thornton is senior project designer at neolight global

[1] ‘Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Transport Lighting Specifications “LED” Roads’. This references CIE 115:2010 (2nd Edition) ‘Lighting Of Roads For Motor And Pedestrian Traffic’. This, in turn, is available from the CIE’s online shop, at http://cie. co.at/publications/lighting-roads-motor-and-pedestrian-traffic

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NOBEL PURPOSE Stockholmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nobel Week Lights in December was a much-needed celebration of light and light installations during a year when the pandemic has meant light festivals have been few and far between

By Nic Paton

FEBRUARY 2021

LIGHTING JOURNAL

Light festivals

ovid-19 has not only emptied our high streets, pubs and shopping centres this winter, it has also meant it has been a season without the usual light festivals to brighten up the long nights. So, even though Sweden has been struggling with the pandemic in recent months, the fact the first ever Nobel Week Lights Stockholm was able to take place at all in December was a refreshing chink of light in the darkness. The event, which ran from 05-13 December, saw 16 locations around the city being creatively illuminated, weaving together art and technology to celebrate 2020’s Nobel Laureates.

Images from Nobel Week Lights Stockholm. Previous page: ‘Space’. This page, from top down: ‘Brilliance’; ‘Reflect’, ‘Opera Lights’; and ‘Sense Light Swing’. All photographs by Per Kristiansen

CELEBRATING NOBEL WINNERS

Installations included ‘Space’ by artist Andreas Skärberg, PXLFLD and Lumination of Sweden. One of the largest video mapping projects ever seen in Stockholm, it was projected on to Stockholm City Hall and was designed to celebrate the 2020 Nobel Physics Prize, which was split between three physicists for their work around black holes [1]. ‘Brilliance’, a site-specific light work created for Sweden’s Nationalmuseum, was a dynamic and colourful light story by artist Aleksandra Stratimirovic. ‘Reflect’, by Beckmans/Studio Tek at the city’s Kulturhuset, was designed to celebrate the unsung research teams behind the Nobel winners. ‘Opera Lights – the Art of Looking Forward’, by artists Patrik Becker and Hans Håkansson, illuminated the Kungliga Operan, or Royal Swedish Opera, and was designed to highlight the importance of fellowship and community during these dark times. ‘Ledsagere’, by Tobias Rylander and Sahara Widoff, illuminated the façade of the Nobel Prize Museum, and was inspired by the procession that opens the Nobel Banquet. The word ledsagare also means a signpost that shows the way, so symbolising how the museum can act as a guide. Then ‘Sense Light Swing’, by Alexander Lervik in the city’s Kungsträdgården and Skärholmen, was a playful, moving installation comprising a swing seat made of transparent acrylic illuminated from the inside by a strip of strong LEDs. For those who were unable physically to travel to Stockholm (in other words, most of us), the installations are available to view digitally through the Nobel Week Lights website, at https://nobelweeklights.se/ program/?lang=en [1] ‘The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020’, split between Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/summary/

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WORK, PLACE, HEALTH It is now almost exactly a year since Covid-19 turned how and where we work upside down. Two lighting designers reflect on some of the profound changes wrought by the pandemic and what it might mean for how we light workplaces and working spaces

By Maryam Aghajani and Johannes Stahl

eâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re now almost exactly one year on from when the coronavirus pandemic hit the world and turned all our lives upside down. Aside from trying to stay healthy during that year, our designer brains were puzzled and eager to see how things might change and unravel as a result; to reflect on how this pandemic will change the way we design, and most specifically use, our spaces. Every morning, after having a quick coffee and making ourselves semi-presentable for a team Zoom meeting, we wondered about the effects of this pandemic on our projects! To our surprise, the pandemic did have an impact on some of our projects and most definitely on our recent workplace design. Here is how our story unfolded. We were given an opportunity to work on an exciting new office project based in Berlin, at the end of February. The client occupied three floors of an office tower and the task was to renovate the existing singular offices to an open collaborative office setting. In addition to workspaces, which occupied most of the floor plan on each level,

there were recreational spaces such as cafeteria, lab, meeting rooms, terrace and lounges, adding up to total areas of around 3,000sq m. The interior designers had three clear objectives for the project: transparency, openness and biophilic design. All these were very important for them, and which they translated through the spatial design of the space, while adding touches of nature within the interiors. Lastly, the design and layout of the workplaces aimed to promote encounter and exchange between and among employees. The focus was very much on creating open, interactive workplaces; facilitating movement and collaboration; yet also with small in-between closed spaces used as quiet areas for phone calls, conferences or tasks that required more concentration. Our proposed lighting concept for this project aimed to highlight and celebrate the biophilic design focus, alongside creating a sense of community and promoting teamwork, and celebrating the versatility of functions within each space through lighting that could be controlled and adjusted by each employee. The desired

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Workplace lighting solutions encompassed a custom-made light fixture combined within planters above each workstation, which provided task lighting as well as sufficient illumination for the plants.

t The workplace has of course evolved before, from (top) the full-size windows and diffused natural light of the 19th century through to (middle) the cubicle spaces of the 20th century and (bottom) more relaxed, open offices of recent years. But the pandemic may change things again

PANDEMIC CHANGING PROJECTS

later burned down [1]. There have been many other pandemics since, however, with perhaps the most deadly being the Black Plague of the fourteenth century. We found the various tuberculosis (TB) outbreaks that occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries especially interesting to study. In fact, it has been suggested that tuberculosis was a prominent factor in shaping modernism. How? In the wake of a TB pandemic, people who could afford it would often seek treatments in sanatoriums, where they had access to a greater quantity of sunlight, fresh air and the outdoors, all of which were (pre-antibiotics) deemed effective in curing or, at the very least, alleviating tuberculosis [2]. The Paimio Sanatorium was among the institutions designed in 1933 by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino for the treatment of tuberculosis in Finland. Indeed, he stated that: ‘The main purpose of the building is to function as a medical instrument.’ [2] The building’s prominent characteristics were rigid geometric shapes with wide roof terraces, light-coloured rooms and minimal interiors with no sharp edges or unnecessary ornaments. These minimal interiors minimised the dust and bacteria accumulation and the light-coloured rooms resulted in brighter interiors. As well as being effective in terms of disease control, they also just happen to be the

It was during schematic design stages that Germany got hit by the first wave of pandemic. Shortly after we (like the UK) locked down, the client notified us they had now changed their mind about the initial approved open-space design and they wished to move forward with single closed-office solutions. The initial interior and lighting design for the office spaces was therefore scratched and we started from the beginning, creating new solutions to correspond to the changes. The open, interactive workplaces were eliminated and the offices went back to enclosed singular zones. Similar to the interior architects, our lighting solutions, naturally, changed to follow the client’s wishes. However, these sudden design changes left us puzzled. We had begun the project with single office spaces designed in the 1990s and, in the wake of pandemic, the immediate reaction was to go back to this familiar segregated office space design? We couldn’t help but wonder, ‘are we moving backwards; is the past really the future for office design?’. Seeking answers, we took a look at previous pandemics and their effects on society, architecture and design. The first pandemic was recorded around 5,000 years ago and wiped out a prehistoric village in north eastern China. The bodies of the dead were stuffed inside a house that was

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p How coronavirus might change the creative/design process (part one)

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Workplace lighting

p The Paimio Sanatorium, as designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino in 1933. The building’s rigid, geometric shapes with wide roof terraces, light-coloured rooms and minimal interiors minimised dust and bacteria accumulation but also happened to be hallmarks of what we now know as modernist architecture

hallmarks of what we now know as modernist architecture [2]. Prominent modernist architects such as Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos took inspiration from these elements and reinterpreted them into their work, in the process developing a language for architecture that incorporated sun, air, the outdoors and minimal interior spaces. From the early nineteenth century onwards, modernism has influenced the spaces we occupy, from our homes through to office and work spaces. For much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and even some of the late eighteenth, a lot of office or workplace design has been a reiteration of modernism. Offices were designed with a sharing desk in the nineteenth century, with full-sized windows filled with diffused natural light. This led to the development of cubicles, which provided slightly more privacy in an open-floor plan and illuminated by good old 60 x 60 diffused fluorescent lighting for much of the twentieth century. Then, currently (well, before the pandemic) there has been a preference for open-office www.theilp.org.uk

layouts with more direct and flexible types of lighting. These changes have been constant and fast!

OVERNIGHT CHANGES TO WORK

Of course, if it’s fast change you want, the Covid-19 pandemic excelled; we all know, we lived it. How – and especially where – many of us work changed out of all proportion during 2020, almost overnight. Office workers around the globe suddenly left behind their daily commutes and their city centre offices and started working from their home. To get a sense of this sea-change, according to the Office for National Statistics around 5% of UK office employees were working from home during 2019. During the 2020 lockdowns this number soared to more 40% [3]. Of course, home working and video conferencing existed before the pandemic (and were both growing), but it is the acceleration – and potential for a permanent shift – driven by Covid-19 that has been breathtaking. For example, some companies, notably the large tech companies such as Google and Facebook, have hinted that this step-change could become a permanent transition for some of their employees [4]. There are, of course, pros and cons to working from home. Employees get the freedom to plan their work day more freely; they have the flexibility to work from wherever they feel comfortable,

whether it is their working desk, kitchen, sofa or bed; they don’t have a daily time-consuming and expensive commute. Some studies have suggested that working from home actually increases productivity levels because employees are less distracted [5]. However, it has also become very clear during the past year that home working is not a panacea and does not work for everyone, especially as a permanent change. Some people simply like being in a shared office space surrounded by colleagues. It can lead to less collaboration and bouncing around of ideas. The late Steve Jobs, for example, was a strong believer in teamwork and having an office space where staff could randomly bump into each other and exchange or cook up new ideas [5]. People can feel lonely and isolated when working from home [6]. It can be hard to integrate or bond teams that are working virtually or remotely. The boundaries between home and work life can become blurred, especially if your home workspace is, say, the corner of the kitchen or the bedroom. It can become more difficult to switch off, both physically and mentally from work. Clinical psychologist Jodie Lowinger has argued these ‘blurred boundaries’ are likely ‘to increase anxiety and stress’ [7]. Some people even find they are missing the daily commute because it gave them daily exercise or fresh air or allowed them time to reset

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Workplace lighting from ‘work me’ to ‘home me’ [8]. So, keeping this in mind – that the evolution we saw over the past year provided one answer to how working might look in future but not necessarily the answer – we need to be asking: what does this all mean for office spaces? What can we take away from the unprecedented experience of last year and what should we therefore be thinking about when reflecting on the future? Based on our research on office design solutions during and post pandemic, we have categorised our findings in two categories: short-term and long-term solutions. Let’s look at each in turn.

SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS

The short-term solutions could be described as ‘prophylactic design’, or design measures or changes that we are likely to see becoming more commonplace simply because they promote or help with preventive methods in regards to the spread or occurrence of disease or infection [9]. These may not, of course, last forever although some (like more home or remote working) may persist or become more commonplace. Immediate actions in preventing the virus spread to create safer work environments are considered as short-term solutions. Examples would include screening and monitoring protocols, proper cleaning and hygiene and, of course, the importance of maintaining physical distancing. The ‘6 Feet Office’ is a good example we have come across. It means essentially having carpet tiles in a 6ft black circle around every desk in an open-floor office, so visually indicating an employee’s safe zone. This was implemented in

Amsterdam in an office, along with a clear set of rules and guidelines to minimise the virus spread [2]. We have also seen some fast-growing lighting solutions, such as development of anti-microbial lights or UVC as well as bio-luminaires. Although these solutions are arguably supported by scientific research for most part, we would question the emphasis on disinfecting properties. As lighting designers, we have come a long way with creating atmospheric task lighting for diverse types of activities in open-office spaces. Having seen some of these new luminaires, it appears, we are sacrificing the element of design and comfort with quality light to disinfecting properties; perhaps therefore this is a step backwards.

LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS

The long-term solutions we’d like to categorise as ‘antifragility design’. Antifragility is a term developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanese-American essayist. Taleb argues that, because fragility, at a personal level, defines our human nature, the systems on which we rely need to provide us with vigour and vitality (especially when we are facing hazardous events) so as to eventually support our resilience and recovery [10]. Let’s take a closer look at some of the long-term, antifragility solutions that we believe will positively affect employees’ wellbeing and help to maintain their physical health as well as their productivity in this new post-pandemic working world. Agile (or flexible) working environment design has been known to be the future of work for some time now. However, up

until now, it has more often been a design option than something that actually happens on the ground. However, with the pandemic having broken the daily commute/physical office mould, we would argue there now needs to be more of a push towards truly implementing agile working environments. What might this mean in practice? It could mean providing employees with diverse environments within the same space or encouraging flexible work arrangements. Given the pandemic has shown people it is possible to work effectively from home in different settings (such as the couch, kitchen desk or even the balcony or garden) work spaces may need to adapt and offer more flexibility. Workplaces of the future may need to be about giving employees the freedom to work in ways that suit them rather than simply the convenience (for employers) of shoehorning workers into workstations in one big office ‘box’. In practical terms, again, this might mean providing offices with items such as moveable desks and formable furniture; soft seating that allows for more flexible work environments; the freedom to work remotely if they so wish or in a preferred work environment [11]. In terms of lighting design, such a shift to or focus on agility would mean needing to provide lighting solutions that, equally, are applicable to and encourage agile work environments. These could include: • •

Flexible types of task lighting suitable for varied seating arrangements A d j u st a b l e g e n e r a l l i g h t i n g

It is also important to note that in the past we never had to worry about the working or task light conditions for our clients at home but now (and increasingly) it will be essential to do so. We therefore believe companies should be required to provide employees working from home with clear lighting guidelines and should be educating them about appropriate task lighting. Some guidelines could be to include: • •

Using indirect lighting while working on computer screens to avoid high contrast Access to daylight and windows but also having curtains so as to avoid glare and reflection

t The ‘6 Feet Office’. Six-foot black circle tiles create a ‘safe’ zone around each desk, and was a design recently implemented in a workplace in Amsterdam

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Workplace lighting

Current situation: single offices

Coronavirus Client approval

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Change and future

Educating the client

WHAT NOW?

Open spaces & interaction

p How coronavirus might change the creative/design process (part two)

We’d argue that reimagining and rethinking the purpose of the work environment is a key in creating future offices. It could be, for example, that you have different workspaces for different forms of activity. So, spaces for collaboration, for one-to-one conversation, interaction and exchange of ideas, for socialising, or for concentrated/solo work. The emphasis on bespoke meeting and gathering spaces will also be equally important, especially as (or if ) employees will mainly be physically coming into the office to be meeting peers, managers or colleagues [12]. From a lighting perspective, again, our recommendations here would include: • • • •

Creating atmospheric lighting for individual activities Flexible lighting layout to suit varied types of gatherings or meetings Appropriate lighting for video calls and meetings Focused lighting for focused tasks

Furthermore, we suspect a rise in outdoor

workspaces, where possible, may persist even beyond the pandemic. Studies show that employees who can work outside are not only happier but more engaged, with higher concentration, increased creativity and improved problem-solving skills [13]. This could also include providing offices with terraces as break-out spaces. In places where an outdoor office is not an option, we could see demand for biophilic, nature-inspired design that brings the outdoors inside will increase. Some recommendations in terms of lighting and lighting design would therefore include:

ANTIFRAGILITY DESIGN Agile working environments Reimagining the work environment design Ultimately, however, we believe that it will be important as lighting designers for us to be talking to and educating our clients about the benefits of agile working environments; helping them to reimagine and reshape the work environment so that they are leading change rather than playing catch up. Tuberculosis may have been a prominent factor in shaping modernism. It is not hard to imagine that Covid-19 may eventually be an equally profound catalyst for new design and lighting design thinking, opportunities and solutions – solutions for (we have to hope) a better future!

• Appropriate outdoor task lighting • Portable light sources • Appropriate light sources for plants within interiors

CONCLUSIONS

We can’t, of course, second-guess how this year will develop, both in terms of the pandemic and evolving working patterns and priorities.

Maryam Aghajani BAA MA and Johannes Stahl BEng MA are lighting designers at jack be nimble

[1] ‘20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history’, Live Science, March 2020, https://www.livescience.com/worst-epidemics-and-pandemics-in-history.html [2] ‘How the coronavirus will reshape architecture’, The New Yorker, June 2020, https://www. newyorker.com/culture/dept-of-design/how-the-coronavirus-will-reshape-architecture [3] ‘Coronavirus and homeworking in the UK: April 2020’, Office for National Statistics, July 2020, https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/ peopleinwork/ employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuk/april2020; ‘Coronavirus: “Nine in 10 would continue working from home”’, BBC News, August 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53946487 [4] Many Google staff may never return to office full-time post-Covid The Guardian, September 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/24/google-staff-return-office-full-time-homeworking-sundar-pichai; ‘Half Of Facebook’s Employees May Permanently Work From Home By 2030, Zuckerberg Says’, Forbes, May 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/05/21/half-of-facebooks-employees-may-permanently-work-from-home-by-2030-zuckerberg-says/; ‘How should L.A. be redesigned for coronavirus? Are doorknobs out? We asked the experts’, LA Times, May 2020, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-05-29/coronavirus-reopening-cities-housing-to-offices-how-covid-19-will-reset-architecture-in-cities [5] ‘Sorry, but Working From Home Is Overrated’, New York Times, March 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/technology/working-from-home.html [6] ‘End of the office: the quiet, grinding loneliness of working from home’, The Guardian, July 2020, https:// www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jul/14/end-of-the-office-the-quiet-grinding-loneliness-of-working-from-home [7] ‘Coronavirus has led to an epidemic of overtime, with loneliness and anxiety growing, too’, ABC News Australia, May 2020, https://www. abc.net.au/news/2020-05-19/coronavirus-unpaid-overtime-anxiety-work-life-balance/12259646 [8] ‘Insurer recommends “fake commute” to boost home workers’ health’, Occupational Health & Wellbeing, November 2020, https://www.personneltoday. com/hr/insurer-recommends-fake-commute-to-boost-home-workers-health/ [9] ‘Term: Prophylactic Measures’, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, http://mchp-appserv.cpe.umanitoba.ca/viewDefinition.php?definitionID=103416 [10] ‘Architecture matters. Towards antifragility in the Post Pandemic Era’, Share-architects.com, June 2020, https://share-architects.com/architecture-matters-towards-antifragility-in-the-post-pandemic-era/ [11] ‘Physical workplaces important for “preventing the loneliness epidemic in an increasingly digital world” says Vitra’, Vdf (Virtual Design Festival), June 2020, https://www.dezeen.com/2020/06/18/vitra-the-road-back-to-the-office-coronavirus/ [12] ‘Future of offices in a post-pandemic world’, Arup, https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/research/section/future-of-offices-in-a-post-pandemic-world [13] ‘Workplace Design: Bringing The Indoors Out’, All Work, October 2020, https://allwork.space/2020/09/workplace-design-bringing-theindoors-out/amp/

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HITTING THE

HEIGHTS

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High mast lighting

Maintaining high-mast lighting, such as that at sports grounds, brings with it quite specific challenges around access and safety. But it is also about recognising that, irrespective of the luminaire, mast and column maintenance needs to be an ongoing, long-term priority

By Darren Pearce and Chris Anderson

nglish cricket was, quite rightly, praised last year for eventually managing to salvage something of its Covid-19-ravaged season. Against the odds, and through the use of ‘bubbles’ and strict infection control protocols, we saw some thrilling, if still crowdless, Test, one-day and 20/20 matches against the West Indies, Pakistan and Australia. Hopefully, with the rollout of vaccines during this year, 2021 will revert to being much more of a ‘normal’ cricket season, both at county and national level, and we can all finally return to our favourite grounds to enjoy day, day/night and nighttime matches. Despite the financial transformation English cricket has gone through in recent decades, with TV money flooding in, central contracts for key players, new county structures and even the arrival of new formats such as ‘The Hundred’, when it comes to lighting you might be surprised to learn that many grounds are still yet to make the transition to LED. What that means for firms like ours is that there is a requirement for ongoing maintenance at height every year, simply to keep the lighting levels up at grounds such as Edgbaston, Trent Bridge and others.

NEED FOR ONGOING MAINTENANCE

In fact, in some respects, when it comes to at-height maintenance, the LED transition debate is irrelevant anyway. People often think of LED switchovers as being some kind of panacea, meaning you will no longer have to maintain luminaires and you’re going to be able massively to cut down on ongoing maintenance bills as a result. At one level, if you’re just thinking about the luminaire, you’d be right. But there is still an ongoing need to be maintaining the column and the mast that

goes with it, something that is, of course, even more important when you are talking about high masts. If a luminaire fails, it is going to have a detrimental effect on lighting levels; if a column or mast fails, especially one that is towering over a cricket ground, such as Edgbaston’s iconic ‘e’ headframe, it is a much more significant problem. Back in 2011 we designed and installed Edgbaston’s floodlighting system as part of a £32m redevelopment project. Featuring a cantilevered design, each mast holds around 60 Abacus Challenger floodlights, which form the ‘e’, a light that is now very much part of the Edgbaston skyline. It, like at a number of sports venues around the country, is a 50m-high static mast, where we need either to climb up to it to maintain it (if it is safe to do so) or use plant to access it. Other challenges in this context can be that many ageing assets, such as lattice towers, have many weld joints; many masts are also on unsafe foundations or have not had good planned maintenance in the past. Clearly, many lighting engineers are familiar with at-height maintenance for street lighting, but what are some of the challenges associated with maintenance at this type of even higher level? Floodlight maintenance involves checking that the luminaire is intact, secure and undamaged, with all associated electrical items being checked for security and any damage. The fixings, internal optics and visors must be inspected and cleaned to remove any build-up of dirt that may dim or adversely affect the luminaire output.

IMPORTANCE OF HIGH ILLUMINANCE LEVELS

On top of this, televised coverage is an increasingly important aspect of – and revenue stream for – many sports these days,

with cricket no exception. The lighting on a ground must continually meet sporting and broadcasting requirements. Televised cricket, in particular, demands high illuminance levels. In fact, cricket – where you have a small, hard ball that moves fast, slow motion replays, the ‘snickometer’ and so on – is probably one of the most light-intensive sports there is; you are talking about 2,500 lux on the wicket. The lighting levels need to be really, really good, really consistent, and with a high level of uniformity. We’ve already touched on the first maintenance priority, which matters however you’re doing anything – the mantra ‘if it is safe to do so’. A site-based risk assessment is an absolute prerequisite. You have to bear in mind, too, that rope access is governed by a different set of protocols because you’re climbing. Another way to access the headframe is through an external man rider. The weather, clearly, is an important consideration. We often only get a small window of opportunity for maintenance, particularly at the start of the season before everything starts kicking off. Wind is an important factor, too.

WEATHER AND PLANT ACCESS

We will be checking with the Met Office for wind speeds for the proposed day of the works. We can’t work if it is above a certain windspeed and, obviously, inclement weather issues have to be factored in. We try to avoid doing any of this kind of work during the depths of winter because you are more frequently exposed to high wind speeds. Plant access can be another headache. How are we going to get the plant into these sites? Some of them are quite old grounds and housing has been built up around them over the centuries. Trent Bridge, for example, was originally an old travelling inn or coaching house located on the edge of the city. The proprietor was into cricket and set up Nottinghamshire Cricket Club. The original ground was out in the middle of nowhere. Now, however, it is in the middle of Nottingham with two major road junctions either side; it is probably one of the most expensive areas for housing in Nottingham. Headingley, in Yorkshire, is much the same. It has two major road junctions on the ground; you’ve got train lines at the back; you’ve got residential properties straight behind the ground; so it is a real hot potato in terms of physically being able to get an installation in to start with. Then, once you have got the plant in, especially if it needs to get on the pitch or pitch-side, you need to be sure to protect the pitch from www.theilp.org.uk

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High mast lighting damage, and so there is quite complex planning around that, too. With the Edgbaston ‘e’, the bespoke headframe system comprises separate sections that have been bolted together. Each bolt requires inspection in order to keep the headframe intact, ensure the lanterns are in their correct place and that the public is safe. We produce a report on the mast to include items such as the welded and bolted joints across the headframe and the mast itself, with any adjustments to be made where necessary. Mast inspection and reporting includes both the interior and exterior condition, with foundation, foundation bolts, shims and protective finishes all checked and accounted for.

HINGED MASTS

One solution we’re especially keen on, and in fact have pioneered, is hinged masts, whether base-hinged or tubular-hinged. Hinged masts are becoming a more common sight at ports and train stations as well as sports grounds. It stands to reason that if you are able to bring the luminaires to the ground to maintain them, that is going to be much easier than sending a man up to do the work. However, you do then of course need to ensure you are properly maintaining the working parts of the hinged mechanical structure. We always revert back to the ILP’s PLG07 as our benchmark guidance, especially in terms of the frequency of inspections and when a structure is coming towards the end of its design life [1]. However, the ILP’s recent ATOMS guidance is also a valuable addition to your toolkit [2]. The older a column or mast is, it stands to reason the more it will need inspecting and being tested. Particularly when you have masts that have got to 25-30 years of age, you can have failures developing that are not visible to the naked eye, where the mast or headframe has become brittle from the inside. You can get condensation causing failures or welds breaking down. Obviously, the transition to LED is likely to happen at cricket grounds eventually as much as anywhere else. But, to reiterate our point from earlier, that is not going to negate the need for ongoing duty of care and due diligence reheading and maintenance. Don’t neglect your columns and masts or look at LED and think ‘this is going to get rid of my maintenance issue’. If there is a column that it is sat on, that needs looking after as well. If you’re going to take on a rehead project, it is imperative you understand the implications

of it; the ILP’s ATOMS guidance is, again, valuable in this context. All checks must of course be done by a competent person, someone who is going to do a thorough and proper job and who knows what they’re looking at. It is about, first, making sure your lighting scheme is fit for purpose and doing what it needs to do. Then, second, regardless of what height the column or mast is, it is about making sure you have the processes and methodology in place to get up there safely, carry out a detailed inspection, and resolve any issues.

MAINTENANCE CONVERSATIONS

Particularly after the year we’ve just had, and with the economic effects of Covid-19 only beginning to be felt, a lot of people and organisations are going to feel under pressure financially; people are going to be looking to cut corners more and more going forward; they may no longer have the same budget for capital expenditure.

However, they may as a result have a bit more to spend on the maintenance budget, and be a bit more open to ‘make do and mend’ conversations. People may be thinking harder about how they can stretch their assets out a few more years. So it is about all of us, as an industry and as individual lighting professionals, ensuring that money is being allocated in the best way; making sure the right things are being checked in the right way, whether we’re talking about at-height maintenance or just asset management more generally. Now is the time for the industry to be having these conversations, capturing these messages around the need, value and imperative of proper ongoing maintenance.

Darren Pearce is business development manager and Chris Anderson is UK sales director at Abacus Lighting

[1] PLG07 High masts for lighting and CCTV (2013 edition), the ILP, https://theilp.org.uk/publication/plg07-high-masts-for-lighting-and-cctv-2013-edition/; GN02 Lighting of televised sporting events, the ILP [2] GN22 Asset-management toolkit (minor structures), ATOMS, the ILP, https://theilp.org.uk/publication/guidance-note-22-asset-management-toolkit-minor-structures-atoms/

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KEEPING THE COGS TURNING Wirral Council’s massive transition to LED street lighting will result in significant energy savings when it is fully completed later this year. But keeping it pushing forward during a year of pandemic lockdowns and supply chain interruptions proved a business continuity challenge for everyone involved

By Nic Paton

ovid-19 messed with all of our heads during 2020, but it also of course played merry havoc with schedules, deadlines and supply lines, not least within the lighting industry and especially during the first lockdown back one year ago next month. One project that found itself in the eye of a Covid storm was Wirral Council’s massive transition project for its street lighting infrastructure from sodium to LED, a project that will eventually see some 25,000 units being switched by the autumn of this year. As Brian Cartledge, consultant lighting engineer at Wirral Council, tells Lighting

Journal the hope was – and remains – that the ‘narrative’ of this project will be the combination of urban regeneration and renewal it will bring, along with the significant energy savings that will accrue from switching to LED, using the Highway Diamond Elite from ASD Lighting. ‘We’re realising savings of 60%, so we’re looking at perhaps £800,000 savings in total,’ he says. ‘We’ve already saved approximately 1,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. The targets Wirral is working to achieve, and the energy savings we are set to be making, which are, after all, the key to the project, continue and are deliverable.’

BUSINESS CONTINUITY CHALLENGE

Yet, as it has so often during the past year, the impact of Covid-19 just won’t go away. In this case, as Nathan French, director of street lighting at manufacturer ASD Lighting makes clear, the project is in many ways a textbook – and very positive – example of how lighting professionals and ILP members across the country responded with creativity, doggedness and innovation to a business continuity challenge like none of us had ever experienced before. ‘Covid broke out in the middle of the project,’ he explains. ‘That, of course, caused all of us concerns; I think we

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Street lighting and Covid-19 probably lost three or four weeks and none of us – Wirral or our contractor on the ground, SSE – knew whether, or when, we could get on site. ‘It was a massive learning experience for all parties. Basically we just had to say, “right, this is what we need to do, what do you need to do?”. We couldn’t sustain manufacturing indefinitely; equally, SSE couldn’t sustain having people on the project but not on site indefinitely. There were loads of questions, like what ways could we still work, how many people could you have in vehicles and so on? But we all just worked hard and pulled together. ‘Covid was such an unusual thing; we recognised we all just had this huge obstacle in front of us and it was, “how can we continue to deliver a project of this scale and nature?”. Very quickly, by the end of April things had ramped up, if anything. SSE found they had extra resource because they were still allowed to work outside whereas not everyone was able to work inside, so they were able to throw extra people at it. ‘SSE also had to start sending out two vehicles rather than one, so with just one person in rather than dual occupancy, for social distancing reasons. The HIAB [elevated platform] was going out with another vehicle as well. So you still had two people on site, just not in the same vehicle. ‘There were a lot of small things that affected things. For example, really early on, when people were being bussed from airports to safe holding or isolation points, the buses were coming into the Wirral depot, which meant we couldn’t deliver. It was closed at short notice and Wirral had to negotiate to get it reopened,’ Nathan adds. ‘We also needed to avoid bringing columns through the Mersey Tunnel so as to not cause congestion or hold up key transport,’ highlights Brian. ‘But Wirral Council reacted really quickly and made available land it had on the dockside, in Wallasey, which made it easier to get the columns out on site during the crisis. It made it far easier than transporting columns from the other side of the Mersey each day.’

it had the old-fashioned Wimpey-style seating, and you couldn’t move the chairs. ‘We had to take out all of our canteen furniture and put in new furniture to enable proper spacing; we had to stagger breaks and go to two shifts. We reduced the number of people on each line and spread the timeframe out. People were going from roughly 6am-10pm, the same amount of staff just over a longer time period. It was little tweaks like that that

just made a difference. ‘The fact we use a really local UK supply chain where possible meant that everything was able to continue moving pretty smoothly, barring that first fortnight when everyone went, “oh bit of a panic on, what do we do?”. I think everyone of course, across the industry, was facing these same sorts of problems at the time. But we all just gathered our thoughts, worked together, and moved things forward,’ Nathan adds.

WORKING TOGETHER

‘For me, looking back, the lesson of that whole period was simply how everyone stepped up,’ agrees Nathan. ‘There was a bit of a deer in the headlights feel at first I think for everyone right at the beginning of the first lockdown. For example, at ASD we suddenly couldn’t use our canteen in the same way or our toilets. It was daft little things like

p Wirral Council’s switch from sodium (top) to LED street lighting will save it money and energy, but it has also been a great example of lighting teams rising to the occasion during a public health crisis

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EV charging

PRESSURE POINTERS The government’s decision to bring forward the deadline for stopping the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by a decade, to 2030, is set to accelerate the UK’s transition to electric vehicles. This means the challenges and opportunities associated with ensuring our EV charging infrastructure keeps pace will also accelerate

By Dave Hodgkins

he announcement by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in November that new petrol and diesel cars and vans will no longer be sold in Britain from 2030, a decade sooner than the previous deadline, has put something of a rocket under the UK’s ongoing transition to electric vehicles (EVs) [1]. But, while clearly good news from an environmental perspective, the practicalities of how we do this as a country, especially in terms of ensuring the appropriate

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EV charging infrastructure can also be put in place in that timeframe, does pose significant challenges. The government has pledged £1.3bn to accelerate the rollout of EV charge points, but industry groups have said making this transition will require a ‘Herculean’ effort [2]. At Tofco CPP we already work closely with the international EV charging company EVBox, so we’re already seeing up close how the transition to EV is playing out on the ground and, indeed, how

pressure is beginning to build and will now, in all probability, only intensify. This is a demand pressure – and potentially a business opportunity – that lighting as an industry will need to be responding to and focusing on over the course of the next decade. As a nation it is clear that if we’re going to meet the 2030 deadline we’ll need rapidly to expand our physical charging infrastructure, for example our motorway service station charging network. There are,

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EV charging however, to my mind, three other key aspects to this. These are: the demand pressure building up within and from local authorities; the demand pressure building up within and from big employers, fleets and corporates; and (probably furthest down the line) the likely eventual domestic and home-owner demand pressure for residential EV charging capability. Let’s look at each in turn.

county region, including a maintenance depot and 24-hour call out) this creates a conversation around the viability and cost-effectiveness of doing all this. But the central point here is that, as more and more ‘stuff’ is now packaged together within these contracts, EV charge points are becoming an increasingly important environmental and political element.

EV PACKAGED WITH HIGHWAYS LIGHTING

EV AS AN EMPLOYER (AND EMPLOYEE) BENEFIT

Taking local authorities first, we’re already seeing a requirement for EV charge points increasing and being included within highway infrastructure supply and maintenance tenders. Local authorities want chargers, and charging capacity, to be included even if, understandably given the tough financial climate, they often don’t want to have to deal with the complexities and cost of running and maintaining this infrastructure. As more and more cities are looking to make their urban centres either EV-friendly or even just solely for EVs plus electrifying their public transport provision, this demand will only continue to ramp up. This, in turn, will mean there is a need to be in conversations around how goods are transported in and out of cities and when and where charging takes place as a result, perhaps in hubs outside the main conurbation. So, from a manufacturer and a contractor’s perspective, we’re increasingly finding EV is being wrapped as standard into highways lighting contracts. When we get underway with pricing a street lighting supply and/or a maintenance contract, we also now need to be considering installation and maintenance of EV charging units and charging solutions. This is whether they are standalone, within lighting columns, as part of feeder pillars or some other variant. This demand is only likely to intensify going forward. The headache here is what this can mean in terms of pressure on margins. If, as a contactor, you’re being asked within your highways lighting contract to include (as is increasingly becoming the case) supply, installation and maintenance of pillars, panels, cut-outs, columns lanterns and so on and EV charging points and certified charging solutions that makes it challenging. If you’re also being asked to collect and distribute the income and all its associated costs (which could mean 30-40 chargers in 22 car parks across a

The second demand pressure – and opportunity – is business to business: EV charging infrastructure for individual employers and fleets, predominantly. Again, the 2030 deadline is only likely to increase and accelerate demand that was already growing, even with the pressures on businesses from Covid-19 over the past year. Employers, notably fleet owners and operators but also larger corporates, are, naturally, looking at the government’s EV grant schemes, which cover domestic and workplace charging. The ‘homecharge’ scheme, for example, offers grant funding of up to 75% towards the cost of installing electric vehicle charge points at domestic properties, while the workplace charge scheme offers vouchers worth up £350 per charge point [3]. As well as the accelerated 2030 deadline, which will inevitably focus minds, employers increasingly have sustainability and CO2 emissions targets of their own to meet as well as simply wanting to be seen to be ‘doing the right thing’ when it comes to the environment. We’re therefore finding that employers are increasingly looking at the feasibility of installing charge points on their premises, in their headquarters and offices, within their depots and warehouses, often paying a third party for providing the software and/or ongoing maintenance. I would always recommend to choose wisely and ensure your investment is OCPP 1.6 or later certified. Make sure your fleet administrators are trained and comfortable with whichever certified charging solution you choose. On top of this, some employers are even examining the feasibility of issuing residential home-charging units to individual employees to allow them to charge their EV (which may itself be a company benefit) from home. The unit and electricity used at you place of work is then paid for through salary sacrifice or deduction.

To that extent, there is an element here whereby providing access to EV charging is becoming as much about employee engagement and motivation – providing a benefit to make you more attractive to work for as an employer – as it is about infrastructure, driving and transport. There may, clearly, be a direct demand issue here too for lighting manufacturers and suppliers, in terms of transitioning their own fleets or sales teams to EV and therefore needing to put in place their own charging infrastructure. A further demand element here is the potential for training. If you’re putting in a DC charging point, in my opinion you should be certified to do so by that manufacturer and have completed a two-day accredited installation, testing and commissioning course on the manufacturer’s DC charging equipment. We’re getting a lot of customers and clients who are really interested in training their staff up in installation, testing and commissioning of DC chargers (and EVBox offers an online academy that enables this).

DEMAND FOR RESIDENTIAL CHARGING

Finally, there is the domestic demand pressure. As I’ve touched on already, there can be an overlap here with business-to-business demand, with employers looking at ways to help their employees access EV charging, whether at or outside of work. There is, too, an overlap with the urban/residential charging infrastructure being put in place by local authorities. There is some way to go with this – not everyone, after all, has access to a driveway where they can charge their EV or even guaranteed access to a lighting column charge point on their street. But again, clearly, as we gradually make this switch as a nation there are going to need to be conversations around how this transition is facilitated from a charging perspective. One thing, however, is certain for lighting as an industry and for us as individual lighting professionals, and as ILP members. As what has been up to now something of a trot to EV turns into a canter and, most probably over the coming years a gallop, there is going to be a lot we need to be grappling with.

Dave Hodgkins FISM/associate member of the ILP is a director of Tofco CPP

[1] ‘Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM’s green plan’, BBC News, November 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54981425 [2] ‘Shift to electric cars will need “Herculean” effort, says industry’, BBC News, November 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54977010 [3] ‘Grant schemes for electric vehicle charging infrastructure’; ‘Workplace Charging Scheme: guidance for applicants, chargepoint installers and manufacturers, Office for Low Emission Vehicles’; Office for Low Emission Vehicles; https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-grants-for-low-emission-vehicles; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/workplace-charging-scheme-guidance-for-applicantsinstallers-and-manufacturers/workplace-charging-scheme-guidance-for-applicants-chargepoint-installers-and-manufacturers

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SOLAR SYSTEMS Solar lighting is becoming a more popular, and specified, solution on UK high streets. But how can you be confident you are specifying the appropriate products or correct components? Neil Purdue offers a step-by-step guide

By Neil Purdue

olar lighting is here to stay. As the benefits of an emissions-free, offgrid solution become increasingly clear, the adoption of solar lighting will only continue to grow. But how can lighting engineers be sure the products they’re specifying will perform as required? Over the past year, I’ve been running a free monthly online CPD session created to help lighting engineers answer exactly that question. I thought I’d share with you some of the key knowledge from that course to give you the tools you need to confidently specify solar lighting. We’ll look at each of the key components in turn, explaining their function and any key terms before moving on to solar viability calculations.

UNDERSTANDING NEW COMPONENTS

With any new technology, there comes new terminology, components and specifications to understand. Solar lighting is no different. The key components of any solar lighting system are the panel, charge controller, battery and light source. We’ll take a look at each of these components in turn, explaining everything you need to know. As this article is designed for lighting engineers, I won’t go into much detail on the lighting components. It is worth noting, however, that a large factor in making modern solar products viable is their high-efficiency lighting components. The ability to generate higher lumen levels with lower levels of current is crucial.

SOLAR PANELS

Unsurprisingly, solar panels are a key component of any solar lighting product. Made of wafer-based crystalline silicon, solar cells are first connected in series to reach a desired voltage and then in parallel to increase amperage. Solar panels convert sunlight into electricity using a process known as the photovoltaic effect. When light hits the silicon in a solar cell, it ‘excites’ free electrons. This in turn causes a change in voltage across the cell, creating an electrical current. There are two key parts of a solar panel’s specification that it is important engineers are aware of and understand before making a purchasing decision. These are the % panel efficiency and the panel output.

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Solar lighting Panel efficiency is a measure of the percentage of solar energy striking the panel that is converted into useable electricity. Higher-efficiency panels will be able to generate larger amounts of power with a smaller solar footprint. When viewing the specification of any solar lighting product, the panel efficiency can be a quick way of determining the quality of components used. As a rule of thumb, the higher the panel efficiency, the higher quality the product. To determine the viability of any solar product, it is essential to know the panel wattage. This is a measure of how many watts a solar panel can be generated per hour in ‘standard test conditions’ (STCs). It is worth noting that STCs are far better than the weather we typically enjoy here in the UK. A 30W panel on a UK streetlight will rarely generate 30 watts of power each hour. I’ll explain how to calculate an estimated output for any location later in this article.

t Figure 1. How to calculate a solar product’s likely output under certain conditions

CHARGE CONTROLLERS

Solar charge controllers are devices that regulate the rate of electric current that has to be added to a solar panel battery. They prevent reverse current, overcharging or over-voltage. The two main types of solar charge controllers are Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). PWM charge controllers are essentially switches between the panel and battery. With a PWM controller the current is drawn out of the panel at just above the battery voltage. You can think of MPPT controllers as smart DC-DC step-down converters. They adjust their input voltage to draw maximum current from the solar array. This allows up to 30% more solar power to be converted to battery charge.

SOLAR BATTERIES

As solar lighting units harvest their energy in the day and are required at night, energy storage is a crucial component of any system. There are three main battery technologies currently found in solar lighting products. Lead acid batteries are currently the least expensive, however they have the lowest capacity for their size and the shortest lifetime. Lithium-Ion batteries, as used in your laptop or mobile phone, are the most common. They strike a great balance between cost, capacity and lifetime. Batteries using Lithium Phosphate technology are found in the most advanced solar lighting products. These have the longest lifetime but are also the most expensive. Battery capacity is the key specification to

Available watt hours = solar irradiance x product panel wattage

look out for when choosing solar equipment. This is listed in amp hours or watt hours. A higher battery capacity means more days of autonomy. Higher-capacity batteries will also tend to have a longer life as they are discharged less fully.

SOLAR VIABILITY CALCULATIONS

Before purchasing any solar lighting product, it is crucial that you’re able to determine if it is suitable for your requirements. There are two calculations it is important to be able to do. These are the viability of a specific product and the ‘days autonomy’ it will provide.

CALCULATING VIABILITY OF A SPECIFIC PRODUCT

When presented with a solar product by a manufacturer, you may wish to calculate the product’s likely output under certain conditions. This can be calculated using the following formula: available watt hours = solar irradiance x product panel wattage, as shown in figure 1 above. Solar irradiance is a measure of the amount of energy hitting the part at a given point. The irradiance data for any location can be found by visiting www. solarelectricityhandbook.com/solar-irradiance.html

CALCULATING ‘DAYS AUTONOMY’

Solar autonomy is a measure of the number of days back-up power a unit’s battery can store. This is particularly important here in the UK where we can go for multiple days with little or no sunlight in the winter. The following formula can be used to calculate ‘days autonomy’: days autonomy = battery capacity ÷ desired light output (in watts) x desired hours of operations. In conclusion, I hope this article has been useful and has given you the tools you need to more confidently specify solar lighting in the future. For those looking to learn more and further expand their knowledge of solar lighting, I host a monthly online CPD seminar. To register, visit https://downloads. acrospireproducts.com/cpd

Neil Purdue is technical director at Acrospire

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MADE IN CHELSEA A bespoke heritage lighting column, yet also totally up to date with cameras and Wi Fi, is at the heart of the public walkway illumination for the new Chelsea Barracks residential development in Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Belgravia

By Nic Paton

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LIGHTING JOURNAL

Street lighting

hatever way you look at it, Chelsea Barracks, the 12.8-acre former Victorian military barracks in Belgravia, is a seriously highend piece of London real estate. The luxury residential development by Qatari Diar Europe relinks Chelsea Bridge Road with the streets behind it and brings people back to an area cut off from the public for more than 150 years. When fully completed (probably by around 2025) it will include residences, penthouses, mews and townhouses, as well as amenities including a health club and spa, business suites, lounges and cinema within the site’s The Garrison Club, plus extensive car parking and M+E below ground. When it came to lighting the public walkways and garden squares for the latest phases of the development, lighting design studio Nulty was brought in to develop a scheme in response to a masterplan by architects Squire & Partners and Dixon Jones and landscape architects Gustafson Porter + Bowman and Kim Wilkie.

identity – it is, obviously, newer – still feel like a traditional streetscape that has been there for a hundred years, yet which also employs the most up-to-date technology. ‘At the same time, we didn’t want that personality to be lost within too much façade or feature lighting. The focus was to let places be dark that should traditionally be dark, to make it a very considered space, and to use warm qualities of light and colour rendering to make it look its best,’ he adds. Central to the scheme has been the development of bespoke, signature lighting columns, in partnership with design practice Maynard and manufacturer Neri. T h e h e r i t a g e - st y l e c o l umns (and see the panel overleaf for some of the technical features) incorporate CCTV and numberp l a t e rec-

ognition cameras, some static and others moveable, as well as Wi Fi access points. In total there will be 60 columns installed by the time the project is completed. ‘The entire Chelsea Barracks development is intended to feel like it is part of t h e

SUBTLETLY AND USE OF DARKNESS

‘The key challenge was subtlety; not to overdo it,’ Nulty founder Paul Nulty tells Lighting Journal. ‘The brief was that we wanted people to feel they could walk into Chelsea Barracks from any of the other surrounding streets and, while it has its o w n

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Street lighting traditional fabric of heritage London, so the luminaire is designed to reflect that; to be a modern twist on a Dickensian-style gas-lamp,’ says Paul. ‘You also can’t get, I don’t think, more multidisciplinary and collaborative than this project. Gustafson Porter + Bowman came up with the vision for the scale of the landscape. Neri manufactured the column after a tender process and to a brief written by us, Maynard and Gustafson Porter + Bowman. Maynard came up with the specification for the cameras, Wi Fi and the head design. The aesthetic of it was Gustafson Porter + Bowman and the performance was by us. ‘There was also a question of how we integrated the column into the deck. It is not just a dug pole in the street; the deck is a sealed membrane, and there is a car park beneath. So, we had to work with the structural engineers and the architect to create a plinth. The plinths were then cast in place really early on. There was a very close attention to detail. ‘Then there were issues such as making sure each column was neatly aligned and not, say, sitting outside the front door of someone’s property. That level of co-ordination is a bit heart-in-themouth when you actually get on site and see them up,’ says Paul.

UNDERSTATED ILLUMINATION DETAILS

Within the development’s Mulberry and Whistler Squares, the priority was to preserve the architecture of the buildings by incorporating understated illumination details to minimise the impact

of the lighting design. Entranceways therefore feature subtle uplighting and there is integrated lighting underneath the canopies. Within the gardens, vertical lines of light have been created by positioning uplights in trees and illuminating water features to create a softly lit environment that feels both welcoming and safe. To illuminate the development’s dark stone water feature, the team decided against lighting the body of water itself and instead have used a combination of light from the entranceways of surrounding buildings and uplights in trees to create a mirrored effect. In Bourne Walk, one of the development’s main thoroughfares, a 150m rill has been illuminated with rhythmic, low-level lighting to create an intimate walkway that doesn’t impact on the neighbouring park. To honour the only surviving structure from the original barracks, The Garrison Chapel, the bell tower has been lit and a blade of light added beneath each brick façade window to subtly pick out the inset detail. Handrail lighting has been positioned underneath the chapel’s new-build stairs to aid wayfinding. All of the amenity lighting within the lighting design scheme has zero upward spill and under-canopy uplights reduce sky glow. After 10pm all of the lights automatically dim to about half of their output, while the tree accent lighting and uplighting switches off to create a more low-level scheme.

NEED TO BE COMMITTED TO THE LIGHTING

‘The experience I have taken from this is you need a team that is totally committed to it. If you’re not careful, you can end up with a separate column for cameras, a separate column for lights, and maybe a standard luminaire that has been just slightly customised,’ says Paul. ‘Gustafson Porter + Bowman and Squire & Partners were hugely committed to not wanting too much urban furniture – all those extra bits – they were quite purist. They put pressure on the consultants to achieve that but also into ensuring the client bought into the vision as well. ‘For some people, it is just a hole in the ground with lighting on it; why is this so complicated? And, while you may want to say “yeah, I agree”, I wish it were the case. For you to have, essentially, a unique or bespoke luminaire which has input from different disciplines and different needs, the client needs to understand what they are buying into and the cost of that,’ Paul adds. www.theilp.org.uk

INSIDE THE COLUMN

The Nulty/Neri column head has the form factor of a traditional glass-enclosed lantern. However, the sides are not enclosed, as this (especially with LED) will cause mirror reflections of the LEDs within the glass and the light to scatter in unwanted directions as the glass gets dirty over time. The light source is therefore fixed beneath the cap of the column head, aimed downwards and the fixture is open-sided. There are three optic variances designed for asymmetric distribution with backspill control. These are: Type II (134W, 700mA, 8,500 lumen); Type II (47W, 700mA, 2,885 lumen) – lower output adjacent to apartments; and Type IV (100W, 525mA, 6,750 lumen). The lamp comprises a 20 LED array from Cree, and has colour temperature of 4000K. This is warmer than most street lighting but is designed to complement the stonework of the development, argues Nulty. There is designed to be no upward light spill. Controls are DALI, CRI is 85 and UGR is 28.

PROJECT CREDITS Designer: Maynard Design

Lighting designer: Nulty Lighting Landscape architect/ designers: Gustafson Porter + Bowman; Kim Wilkie Architects: Squires & Partners; Eric Parry Architects; Paul Davis & Partners MEP engineers: Atelier Ten Security consultant: Control Risks Highways engineers: WYG Manufacturer: Neri

Lighting

Lighting Journal February 2021

Articles inside

x MADE IN CHELSEA

HITTING THE HEIGHTS

KEEPING THE COGS TURNING

LIGHTING COVENTRY

NOBEL PURPOSE