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TIME LINES
Zaha Hadid’s clean-lined, open-ended design for Glasgow’s new Riverside Museum posed a number of lighting challenges.
Facing page A continuous run of high output LED tape provides a simple but effective solution for the suspended bicycle display, while recessed cold cathode emphasises the sweeping ceiling waves
Photography this page: © McAteer Photograph/ Alan McAteer
Standing at the confluence of the Clyde and Kelvin, the Riverside Museum, ‘Scotland’s new Museum of Transport and Travel’, bares the increasingly familiar hallmarks of a Zaha Hadid creation. Shaped like a giant wave of extruded metal, the building – with its folded profile and doglegged footprint - is a reflection both of the site’s industrial his- tory and its riverside location. Conceptually, the museum forms a link be- tween the river and the city; a giant tunnel that joins a public square at the northern entrance with the Glenlee, the historic ship moored at the quayside, to the south. To heighten this sense of connection, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) wanted to keep the end section of the building visually ‘open’ by glazing the north and south facades. During the tender process, they worked with Buro Happold, whose specialist lighting department Happold Lighting conducted daylight analysis and developed an initial lighting concept for the project - consider- ing energy use, ease of maintenance and uniform lighting for circulation purposes. Their annual exposure levels analysis also helped assist the museum’s curators in their decision on locating exhibits within the space – enabling them to ensure the more light-sensitive pieces could be protected, with light reduction glazing on the south facade and to a lesser degree on the north side of the building. Post Tender in 2009 ZHA appointed Inverse Lighting to develop the scheme and take it through to construction, though Buro Hap- pold continued to engineer and design the building lighting with support from Happold Lighting right up to completion. In particular, ZHA wanted Inverse to explore ways of bringing out the ceiling’s sweeping parametric waves without interrupting its clean lines. The initial scheme proposed that projectors be hidden behind verti- cal grills at the east and west walls, with large light towers running down the central spine of the main hall to provide additional uplighting, but this had been thought too visually disruptive. A suspended system of linear or point sourc-
es was considered but quickly dismissed. So too was the idea of a linear continuous light source, held from one side of gables, that would uplight one side of the pitched ceil- ing more intensely than on the other. This would have required a significant supporting structure and cable containment running the full length of the main exhibition hall. Rather than discounting a continuous linear solution completely, Inverse began to look at ways of adapting the moulded GRG ceil- ing panels to accommodate slot-recessed fixtures. After carrying out a series of mock-ups they decided on a 120mm wide ceiling channel with a single line of high output cold cathode. The lamp sits flush with the front of the slot to maintain a sharp outline while minimising shadowing. With drivers and cables concealed behind the panels, the lighting fits effortlessly into the design, emphaising rather than inter- rupting the ceiling’s organic waves. Having solved this problem, the team then had to consider the large windows at either end of the building. Several daylight calculations and mock-ups were carried out to establish what would be the optimum level of transparency without having an adverse impact on the exhibits in terms of cumulative light exposure. The ar- tificial lighting was then designed to create a gentle transition from the daylight outside to the internal exhibtion space.
EXTERIOR LIGHTING For the external scheme, Inverse was charged with creating a coherent night- scape with the museum as its focal point – accentuating its unique form and visually tying it with the Glenlee. Spotlights were placed along the length of the roof, sitting in the gutters between its folds to empha- sise its undulating form. Along the build- ing façade, dimmable linear fluorescents are positioned within the soft landscaping around the base of the building. The inten- tion was to allow dark and illuminated areas to overlap on the elevations to provide contrast and imply depth - accentuating the geometry with fewer luminaires.
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