Demanding conditions for lighting in the dry training facility for the proposed new Harefield Academy are being met by specially adapted luminaires from Whitecroft Lighting.Replacing the existing John Penrose school, the proposed Harefield Academy will be the first state sports school of its kind in the UK. The first phase of the development was the construction of a dry training facility. The main contractor for the project was Taylor Woodrow Construction, working with a number of key suppliers within a Strategic Alliance Partnership (SAP). Thanks to the SAP approach, all of the key disciplines are able to participate directly in value engineering, programme and planning, design co-ordination and sustainability issues and the benefits of this are exemplified by the lighting design for the dry training facility.
Spanning the area of two football pitches, the indoor facility opened in March 2006 and provides state of the art sports facilities to the local community and Watford FC as well as the academy's students.
The lighting was installed by contractors Rotary Southern. "The lighting requirements for this project were particularly demanding, in terms of both illuminance levels and the temperature ranges the luminaires might experience," explained Rotary Southern's Don Casey. "Having been selected to supply the light fittings, Whitecroft played an active role in fine-tuning the design to suit the needs of the project," he added.
The lighting design called for two levels of illuminance, a high level for serious competitions and a lower level for day-to-day use – thus optimising energy consumption. This has been achieved using specially adapted Serve sports hall luminaires fitted with 4 x 80W T5 linear fluorescent light sources. The lamps are switched in pairs so that only 50% of the lamps are lit during normal use, with the remaining 50% being used when higher illuminance levels are required.
To address the potentially high heat levels within the luminaires, Whitecroft increased the standard height of its Serve luminaires and created a sloped back with internal ventilation to improve thermal cooling. The lamps are protected by a mesh guard, rather than a polycarbonate cover to further aid cooling while ensuring the lamps were protected.
A further challenge was presented by the need to operate within a wide temperature range through the year, resulting from the design of the hall. The hall is naturally ventilated using low level static louvres and high level motorised louvres in the curved plastic roof. To cope with the possibility of condensation dripping from the ceiling the back of the luminaires are IP65 rated, with the sloping back ensuring that any water droplets run off.
