New Work in the right light

At 197 City Road in London, in the heart of London’s own small Silicon Valley, a Victorian facade meets state-of-the-art technology. Near the Old Street roundabout, the historic Old Street Works now offers a New Work concept over four floors of office space covering 750 square metres. The driving forces behind this ambitious modernisation project were maximum flexibility and comfort for employees on the one hand and maximum energy efficiency on the other. This could only be achieved if the lighting installation was in perfect harmony with the structure of the building. The IoT-based intelligent lighting solution, which was implemented by Silent Design together with smart lighting specialist Tridonic, addresses precisely these demands. In close cooperation with Tridonic and the team of architects, Silent Design completed one of the largest installations in Europe at 197 City Road using Tridonic’s sceneCOM S, a lighting control system developed in accordance with the current DALI-2 specification. This project features seven sceneCOM S DALI-2 controllers and around sixty DALI-2 MSensor 5DPI motion detectors.
 

Aesthetic and functional

Although not a modern glass-facade building, the Victorian window frontage provides a relatively high level of natural light. Tridonic took this into account with a solution that had already proven to be successful in numerous other lighting installations in office buildings. Whenever there is sufficient daylight the lights near the windows are automatically dimmed. This not only reduces energy consumption but also improves the level of comfort for people working close to the windows.

The first three floors in the Old Street Works are designed for small offices with no more than 30 employees and are equipped with suspended groups of luminaires controlled by PIR sensors. The top floor, which can accommodate 100 people, has a suspended power track system. Each luminaire can be individually controlled, and when a certain level of daylight is reached it is automatically dimmed.

A virtual corridor has also been programmed on each floor to ensure the minimum amount of required lighting outside normal working hours. For example, this safety lighting allows security personnel to easily check the walkways without having to activate all the lights on the floor. The PIR sensors fit seamlessly into the building aesthetics thanks to their compact design.

An app for intuitive planning and commissioning

Tridonic’s “sCS commissioning” app made commissioning the lighting a simple and straightforward four-stage process, enabling remote control and allowing quick adjustments. The first step involves creating a new project in the app based on a floor plan or an existing cloned layout. Luminaires can then be grouped and planned to produce the desired lighting scenes. Next, the drivers, sensors and switching components can be automatically selected via the sceneCOM S application controller. In the third step, these elements can be dragged and dropped onto the floor plan and assigned to the relevant groups. Finally, the desired lighting function is configured and assigned. The project can then be provided with PIN protection.

Over-the-air updates ensure that the system is always secure and up-to-date.

In installing the smart lighting system in City Road, the partners in this project have successfully brought together the three elements of energy efficiency, an intelligent and intuitive operating concept and an aesthetic ambiance.