The Iconic Civic Centre Gets A Makeover

Due to increasing maintenance costs, investment was required to improve the landmark, enhancing it for future generations and to create a more energy efficient workplace for the Council. Improving energy efficiency, addressing longstanding repairs and maintenance issues was at the forefront of the plans. Newcastle Council was looking to save £2m each year through reduced energy bills and lower repair costs. The refurbishment was to provide a modern office environment for Council staff, with one floor being completed first to give indicative energy savings, therefore enabling the Council to carefully monitor cost savings.

Consultancy
Working closely with the Consultant: WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, Hacel Lighting developed a lighting and controls brief to enable the team at Hacel to produce a complete and creative lighting solution considering the Clients (Newcastle Council) expectations: the buildings working environment, function and ever increasing considerations of costs, ease of maintenance and sustainability. Initial designs are quite often very fluid within the early stages of the design process with architectural, structural and mechanical disciplines all having an input and influence on the overall lighting and lighting control design.

Communication throughout the process with the design team at Newcastle Council and WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff enabled Hacel to find a complete solution which enhanced the core values of the project. Attention to detail during the technical process resulted in comprehensive packages of technical drawings (AutoCAD), luminaire, lighting control specifications and Lighting Calculation documents (Relux) being amalgamated for technical submission.
 

Luminaires and Lighting Controls Specification
Infinitas:  A refined LED System, sleek in its design, the system is precision extruded and offers continuous lines of uninterrupted uniform LED lighting. For the Civic Centre, Infinitas Direct/Indirect Suspended was specified. Differing modules were specified including DALI addressable modules and also DALI addressable modules complete with DALI addressable Emergency.
Soledo:  A precision engineered LED downlighter, offering a choice of wattage and lumen outputs combined with superior LOR's and efficacies to give exceptional performance. Soledo DALI addressable downlights were detailed complete with anti-glare louvre.
ELEDD Midi: Small in size, but powerful in performance, the Midi LED DALI addressable recessed downlighter offers remarkable function and capability.
Ariga: Combining an aesthetic design with superior photometric performance, the Ariga range hosts an exceptionally wide light distribution, ideally suited to a wide range of general lighting applications. Arigas specified were surface mounted, DALI addressable.
Emy: The Emy range optimises energy efficiency and integrated heat removal to provide extensive LED life. Emy Escape Route DALI addressable Emergency, Emy Area DALI addressable Emergency and Emy Wall/Ceiling Mounted DALI addressable Exit luminaires, were identified for the Civic Centre.
 

As our OEM supplier for control of emergency lighting within Hacel luminaires, the use of Mackwell products were installed. An essential part of this project was to provide a complete solution. Comprehensive and expert planning ensured lighting quality was not only maintained, but improved through the use of LEDs and smart lighting controls. N-Light Connect Touch Panels; a DALI emergency lighting test and monitoring system from Mackwell were utilised. Designed to be simple to use and intuitive with live system status diagnostics for instant information, the touch panels can be networked together to monitor larger DALI installations, providing scope for the remaining phases of the Civic Centre refurbishment program. N-light Connect touch panels were suitable to use in conjunction with DALI emergency components, including Xylux self-contained emergency luminaires and XY-VEX exit signs, which were all employed for the Civic Centre.
 
Summary
The Civic Centre is an asset of real social and economic value to the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Through continual support of Hacel’s design, we ensured the commissioning, programming and visual environment of the lighting met with our client’s expectations. The success of this first phase has resulted in the remaining stages of the project being exclusively specified with Hacel LED Luminaires further featuring Mackwell electronic components.