The bus plaza, at Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, was designed with beautiful meandering shape to create an elevated arrival experience for visitors and intuitively lead them to main shopping centre entrance.
The form of the Plaza and transparent glazed roof were key features in our approach. Getting the light intensity and the right distribution of light through the glazed canopy was our initial focus. We decided to light the canopy glazing in a 4000K, cool white, to give a fresh feel. With the concept being to have a tail off of light from the centre to the edge of the glazing, and to eliminate sight of any lines or diodes from the light sources themselves when seen from any angle.
Added to the glazed canopy lighting effect, along the edge cylindrical beam we designed a line of light feature which gave accentuation to the shape and curvaceous form of the structure. Rather than a standard detail with neon LED, we decided to light from the side along the curved beam to make it appear that the light was emanating from the same source as the one lighting the glazing. The effect also tailed off along the circular beam and enabled us to discretely hide junctions between luminaires at the same time giving a seamless appearance.
Mock-up testing, particularly for the glazed canopy but also with the edge beam was an important part of our process. With the glazed canopy we started by testing numerous glass samples/light source combinations, progressing to full scale mock-up on selected products. As we were also getting our functional lighting from the lighting of the canopy, we took illumination levels at this stage. The edge beam was also mocked up in a number of configurations, ensuring we got the best configuration to give a tail off along the bean, while also minimising any view of the light source.
As mentioned the lighting to the canopy was 4000K as was the functional lighting in the structure. Lighting to planting areas were a warmer colour temperature of 3000K, helping to soften the hard surfaces and cooler colour structure and contrast nicely with the glazed canopy.
A key objective in our design was to manage any up-light spill from the canopy as much as possible, both to passing buses but also to minimise any possible light pollution. We detailed a 600mm shield angled to get the tail off of light to the edge of the glazing, but also to manage obtrusive light.
We were careful to choose high efficiency light sources with good colour rendering, to minimise energy consumption while maintaining quality, working to 90 lumen/per watt minimum, with lamp life 75,000 hours plus for all light sources.
