LIGHT + TECH 121
‘The scale, while of course daunting – especially the unique challenge of lighting the chimneys – was also incredibly exciting. I will never forget the experience of those early site visits, wandering through the empty power station, going into the shells of the turbine halls and wash towers, seeing the control rooms, and witnessing all the incredible artefacts from a bygone era. ‘Having worked on some very
large-scale projects over the years, you learn how to approach them as a whole while at the same time breaking them down into manageable parts. While the programme was fast, the budget incredibly tight and the ambition level off the chart, we quickly grew into the project and developed a successful, collaborative relationship with the client and the design team, which in turn supported our work.’ – Mark Major, senior partner, Speirs Major
appearance of the ceiling. This expanse is now softly washed with colour-changing light, which adjusts during the day to align with the natural daylight cycle. Cool, crisp white tones underline the modernist aesthetic during the day, followed by a warmer “sunset” feel taking over into the evening, with the provision for full colour change after dark to support celebrations, promotions and events. Additional ambient colour-change floodlighting integrated within the skylights creates a feature that also pops through into the roof gardens for the residents of Switch House West. Accent lighting picks up the window reveals and the linear form of the bridge structures, while the escalators are highlighted with integrated dynamic lighting that can tie in with the changing colours of the curved roof. That lighting detail which is designed to ‘pop through’ into the roof gardens of one of the residential development is just one small
signifier of the degree to which elements of the massive site overlapped and interacted, and how the detail always had to be considered against the whole.
‘Perhaps our biggest takeaway from Battersea was about dealing with the interfaces between different areas of the project and the phases of other adjoining schemes,’ says Major. ‘While the site itself, different areas of the design and the individual works packages have distinct scope and boundaries, light doesn’t obey red lines on a plan. We have therefore always had to remember that it is the combination of the light from many different parts of a project that coalesces to create the final experience.
‘Although the Power Station is open and lit, there is still a lot of hard work to do, particularly for future phases of work, to make sure that the high standards we have achieved so far are maintained into the future.’
ALL IMAGES: PETER LANDERS
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