RIDI'S DIVINE LIGHTING SOLUTION FOR TRINITY HALL

Luminaires from commercial specialist RIDI Lighting Ltd are at the heart of the lighting scheme recently developed for the award-winning, Faculty of Divinity at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. RIDI's VL-LINEA system and the popular AIDA and ALENA luminaires were specified to suit both light level and architectural design requirements on this celebrated project, featuring in the prestigious Faculty Library, as well as in the administration, circulation and office areas.

Designed by architect Edward Cullinan and Partners, and winner of the RIBA award for sustainability, the £7.8.m Faculty of Divinity building is one of a number of developments being carried out at Trinity Hall to mark its 650th anniversary. The state of the art building is distinguished by its majestic, glazed rotunda and a range of other impressive architectural features.

Lighting system design for the Faculty Library was driven by a two-fold requirement: the need to provide suitable light levels to the bookshelves, containing 130,000 books, without projecting glare; and also the requirement for a luminaire that could integrate discretely into the shallow coffer runs between bookshelves.

After close consultation with the lighting design team at Edward Cullinan, RIDI provided its VL-LINEA pre-wired trunking system with VLROW luminaire attachment for the two-floor library, - a version offering excellent vertical light distribution and good glare control achieved through its white oval wrap-around cross blade controller. The Library height was restricted by planning regulations with a mezzanine slab of only 250mm thickness. However, the shallow profile VLROW neatly integrated into the shallow, 'marble effect' ceiling coffers, ensuring continuous runs could be installed between the bookshelves.

Colin Rice, Project Architect with Edward Cullinan commented: "The VL-LINEA combined with the VLROW is a highly efficient and well designed luminaire. We had a variety of lighting requirements on this project and the RIDI luminaires proved very capable of meeting these highly demanding objectives."

The offices for teaching and administration staff have been designed to allow in some natural daylight with ceiling suspended direct/indirect AIDA and ALENA fittings providing even light distribution for workstation and study areas. All lighting throughout the building is regulated by an ECS control system to provide daylight linking and presence detection for optimum energy consumption.