Feature
How Lighting Can Be Utilised To Enhance Building User Experience
In recent years, much of the conversation around effective facilities management has shifted to encompass occupant wellbeing. Lighting design in workspaces should be carefully considered as this can have a considerable long-term impact on people’s health. Nick Tagliarini, Director at Pexhurst, working closely with architecture firm Vincent + Gorbing discusses the significance of lighting design and how it installed new LED lighting in a modern geometric pattern to boost productivity, enhance wellbeing and contribute towards sustainability goals at the University of Hertfordshire.
Although often underestimated, lighting design has a significant impact on the way a building is perceived, experienced, and understood. Good lighting, whether natural or artificial, has the ability to completely elevate a space as lighting is the medium through which users are able to view and appreciate their environment. Moreover, lighting directly impacts how building users feel, affecting their productivity, comfort and health. It is therefore the building designer’s role to create a space that is not only functional, but attractive and socially useful. This is the mark of a good building which people enjoy spending time in.
Moreover, lighting also offers the user an experiential value. The use of lighting in architectural design should not only deliver a functional purpose, but an aesthetic one. Sight is the primary sense through which we experience and enjoy architecture, and lighting plays a pivotal role in our perception of it. Lighting can highlight colours, textures, shapes and forms within the space, helping to realise an architectural vision.
Designers are constantly trying to envisage the building design through the eyes of the building occupier. If the building is a workspace, they should consider how the design can facilitate productivity, but also how it can enhance an occupant’s mood and wellbeing. Additionally, sustainability is a greater concern than ever making efficiency a key priority. To create lighting which truly enhances the space three factors must be incorporated into the design: function, aesthetic and efficiency. These are three key factors that were taken into consideration in the lighting design at Prince Edward Hall, University of Hertfordshire.
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The Vision Behind The Lighting At Prince Edward Hall The project involved the creation of a multi-use learning space for incoming students. Prince Edward Hall was designed to facilitate informal learning by individuals and groups in a stimulating and friendly co-working environment, with a view to modernise this outdated space and implement new features for use by students and staff. New LED lighting was installed in a modern geometric pattern to revitalise the space, paying homage to the University’s reputation in engineering with specialist lighting that emulates a circuit board.
Claire Bennett, architect at Vincent + Gorbing commented on the architectural ambitions for Prince Edward Hall: “The concept for the ceiling was loosely based on a circuit board layout which provokes energy and power for a vibrant, inspiring design. The circuit board lighting hangs from a metal grid structure at five metres from the floor level which creates a lower ceiling and that sense of enclosure the client aimed to achieve. The lighting
products were from Synergy Creativ.
This company was chosen as the lighting elements are bespoke and made in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, which is just down the road from the university ensuring a low carbon footprint.”
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