In the re-development of London's Cannon Street station, architects Consarc specified a series of tensioned fabric canopies over the ticket and arrivals concourse to create a new ambiance at the station for Network Rail.Lighting designers Indigo Light Planning worked closely with Base Structures, who supplied the tensioned canopies, and with Sill Lighting to arrive at the best lighting solution. Paul Nulty, who worked on the scheme whilst at Indigo explains, "It was a challenging project as we needed to comply with transport legislation calling for 200 lux on the lower concourse and 400 lux on the upper. We chose uplighting with Sill projectors to achieve this and illuminate the canopies." He continues, "The aesthetics of the Sill projectors also contribute well to the overall look of the scheme."
There was added complexity in that not all the canopies were the same size, calling for luminaires with a good range of optics to ensure uniformity.
Indigo and Base Structures designed a single conical bracket, which projects downwards from the high point of each canopy, and onto which differing numbers of luminaires are fixed according to canopy size.
Much use was made of the different optics available in the Sill 453 projector range. Nearly 100 Sill 453 projectors are used, mainly with wide beam asymmetric optics but some with narrow beam, long throw asymmetric optics, all fitted with 150W metal halide lamps.
Paul Nulty adds, "We have always found Sill luminaires to be optically superior, and with them we have achieved an even, uniform lighting scheme with 40% uniformity. The scheme works very well and met the client's brief."
