Whitecroft creates light for National Assembly of Wales

14 June, 2006

Whitecroft Lighting’s expertise in designing and making bespoke luminaires has been used to produce effective and energy-efficient lighting for the National Assembly of Wales.

Specially designed luminaires providing both direct and indirect lighting have been supplied by Whitecroft Lighting for the National Assembly of Wales in Cardiff Bay. They have been installed through most of the building and provide a clean, stylish lighting solution combining high performance with low cost of ownership. The 5300 m2 building houses a debating chamber, several committee rooms, offices, ancillary areas and public areas. It has been designed for minimum energy use and incorporates innovative technologies to combine comfort, ease of use and energy efficiency. Part of this strategy included making effective use of daylight via roof lights and windows. The luminaires are linked via DALI ballasts to a centre daylight sensor on the roof. Lights are dimmed when there is sufficient daylight. To eliminate glare, blinds on the roof lights can be closed, and the artificial lighting increased. Each luminaire has a PIR sensor to control lighting according to occupancy. Luminaires are suspended in continuous rows in offices, committee rooms, information points, public viewing areas, internal courtyards and translator and sound booths. Mounted discreetly within infill panels in the lighting system are smoke detectors, PA speakers, cameras and occupancy detectors. Each luminaire uses T5 fluorescent light sources in single or twin configuration. Light distribution is symmetrical or asymmetrical to suit the space. In areas such as the tea room, warmer light is provided by low-voltage halogen downlights in the fittings. Uplighting and downlighting in each luminaire are switched separately. Because of the high level of services integration, Whitecroft worked with other members of the design-and-construction team to facilitate progress within the schedule. Whitecroft produced a coherent set of working drawings which all members of the design team could work from. This made the working design available to the production team so that downstream manufacturing problems were avoided.

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