Westminster Coroner’s Court, UK

SCOPE:

– Refurbishment of existing ground floor waiting areas, offices and stair lobbies

– New building block housing reception, waiting area, office rooms and Coroner’s new courtroom.

– External Garden of Remembrance and Garden of Reflection.

This is one of several schemes I have now worked on with Lynch Architects. Their architecture has always a very strong identity which I believe is best kept clean of clutter. Minimal luminaires on display enables the architecture ‘do the talking’.

From Lynch Architect’s side, they are great at understanding the role light will play in enhancing their schemes and are happy to incorporate slight adaptations to house the luminaires appropriately.

Example of this was expanding the gap along the court rooms ‘skylight’ to house a row of iGuzzini Laser Blades – this did most of the direct task lighting scene and helped achieve light levels expected for office environments. Due to the luminaires proportions and glare control they are almost imperceptible from below.

The original concept was that the Coroner’s new court room would have a long continuous central skylight. This was eventually VE-ed to only a few pop-up sections of skylight and we decided to create a tunable white light box in the spaces in between. The tunable white strips of LED are concealed behind Barrisol panels and the controls oscillate the white from cool in the daytime o warmer at night.

We also created a gap at the bottom of the half barrel ceiling to house continuous linear uplighting. This creates warm, indirect lighting which is used mostly due to its comforting, subdued effect. The courtroom has no visible light fittings.

This principal is also applied to the waiting room, apart from one wall light which brings brightness to an otherwise darker more contemplative space.

I always like the ability light has to transform architecture, how it can sometimes highlight a detail or a dimension that is otherwise lost in daylight.

In the case of the Coroner’s Court, it was important to me to show to the outside world, passing by along Horseferry Road and Regency Street, what the users can experience while within the building.

It was a real privilege to get to know the work and process of Glass artist Brian Clarke and his team. The stained-glass windows commissioned and donated by Brian for this project are truly stunning and transforms the space and the mood of anyone who visits the building.

I always say – it’s easy lighting beautiful things.

The initial controls system specified was VE-ed during the building process but scene setting is still achieved by the use of some simple grouping, switching and the use of timers.