RIDI Lighting’s AIDA and ALE ranges have been used in an impressive new educational building project at Sir George Monoux College , Walthamstow. A new LRC (Learning Resource Centre) building at the college features a library, central IT area, and seminar and learning spaces complete with a high-performance lighting scheme to deliver the correct light levels and quality of illumination for all zones throughout the building.

A Sixth Form college situated in the North East London Borough of Waltham Forest, Sir George Monoux serves a wide catchment area for 16-19 year old students. In the last two years it has opened two new buildings, and the original main college building is constantly being updated and refurbished. Michael Jones & Associates and RIDI worked together to create a lighting scheme that would satisfy the wide variety illumination needs of the new LRC.

The lighting scheme features RIDI luminaires in three separate zones of the building. The main Library area is fitted with the suspended AIDA-RP direct/indirect 3 lamp luminaires to provide a useful combination of upward - and separately switched downward light - to achieve the amount of reflected light to effectively illuminate this large open space and bookcases. The classroom areas feature ALE-HI suspended direct/indirect luminaires incorporating different louvre types to suit the various learning applications specified in the brief. For example, to aid IT tasks in the classroom areas ALEs with parabolic louvres are combined with wallwashers to highlight the whiteboards. In art rooms, colour-corrected lamps with less intense output louvres create a more diffused effect. The corridors have a robust sports-style louvre, to prevent any potential deliberate damage to the lamps.

Colin Maddox of Michael Jones & Associates explains: “RIDI was a great partner for this project: a ll of the RIDI lighting fittings supplied more than fulfilled their design requirement, and the contractor also found that the RIDI fittings and their suspensions went up quickly and easily - an important consideration on this type of large project.”