A walk in the Park

A broad and demanding brief covering energy efficiency, legacy uses and the welfare of bats governed Sutton Vane Associates’ strategy and designs for lighting the Olympic Park and Public Realm. Nick Martindale reports

When the Olympic Development Authority (ODA) accepted a joint proposal by architectural firms LDA Design and Hargreaves Associates to design the 2012 Olympic Park in March 2008, the companies chose to bring in Sutton Vane Associates as the lighting designer for the project.

The brief covered five main elements, including the lighting design for the Park and Public Realm areas, both for the period of the Games and for subsequent legacy use.

Sutton Vane Associates director Michael Grubb says: “In July 2008 the ODA commissioned us to create a lighting strategy for the whole of the London 2012 site that would provide clear guidance in line with the ODA’s priorities in areas such as security, accessibility and sustainability.

“The strategy has since been used by designers, constructors and planners to guide the detailed design of lighting schemes in the Olympic Park, taking into account issues such as proposed habitats, creation of safe routes and efficiency of lamp types and lighting controls. We were also appointed to prepare the initial concept lighting designs for some of the bridges and underpasses.”

In 2010 Sutton Vane Associates was appointed as lighting designer for the temporary common domain, and then again in spring 2011 to handle the design for the transformation period that will follow the Games.

Greener Lighting

In line with the drive to make London 2012 the greenest-ever Games, energy consumption was a prime concern. “Considerations were broader than simply rating one product against another,” says Grubb. “For example, the majority of the lighting columns have photovoltaic panels on them, but they feed energy into the mains, rather than directly powering the lighting, because that is more efficient.

“The panels have an optimum size of 1,500cm x 800cm, because bigger panels would have required thicker lighting columns, with more embedded energy. It was important, too, that LED lamp arrays could be individually replaced, rather than the whole lantern.”

Energy efficiency has also been a prominent part of the design for the park’s legacy mode. The majority of the lighting columns during the Games will be between 8m and 10m tall and support ceramic metal halide lighting with a uniform colour temperature of 3,000K, but afterwards there will remain smaller 6m-tall columns supporting LED lanterns using renewable technologies, such as photovoltaics.

“There are also seven halo lights positioned on 32m-tall tapered columns with vertical turbines at the top,” Grubb adds. “They are used for downlighting the concourse and are on dual circuits so that, while only half the luminaires will need to be used after the Games, the option of additional lighting will remain available.”

Lighting levels across the Olympic Park will vary, both during the Games and afterwards, ranging from an average maintained luminance of 30 lux and a minimum of 15 lux for highly populated concourse areas, to an average 15 lux and minimum 5 lux for general routes. After the Games, levels can be reduced by the use of step-down lighting controls, so areas such as towpaths will have a 5 lux average and 1 lux minimum. In part, the reason for this - energy efficiency aside - is to encourage darker areas of the parkland where nature can flourish, alongside safe and well lit passages to link communities.

Wildlife Considerations

A consideration for wildlife has been another constant theme in the design process. Grubb says: “Protecting biodiversity in the wildlife areas and waterways of the Park was a high priority and drove decisions such as specifying LED lighting for identified bat corridors,” he says. “LED lighting does not emit ultraviolet
light, which would disturb the moths that bats feed on. A plan was included in the lighting strategy, identifying the key environmental zones that would be kept free from artificial light to benefit the park’s birds and mammals.”

A further challenge was to ensure consistency in the lit environment across the entire park, including those areas handled by other designers. With this in mind, Speirs and Major Associates was appointed in 2009 to review the whole of the lighting design work, something that brought a uniformity to the style of fixtures.

“The advice included developing the existing idea of common procurement, so that fixtures and fittings shared a co-ordinated design,” says Grubb. “For example, columns for CCTV have the same diameter, look and finish as the lighting columns, and they, in turn, support a family of luminaires and lanterns. This has given the park the unified design language essential for both the Games and its legacy.”

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