RIDI has supplied nearly 2000 luminaires from its AIDA range of suspended direct/indirect luminaires to two new buildings at Pfizer Ltd's Research and Development facility in Sandwich, Kent.

Throughout the project, RIDI worked closely with the design team to ensure that the most appropriate AIDA luminaires were used to suit the architect's positions while providing the optimum uniformity of light distribution. Most commonly used is a 1 x 28W T5 luminaire, which was developed specially for the project and has now become a standard product in the range.

In other areas, 2 x 28W and 3 x 28W fittings have been used - maintaining the overall visual effect while providing variable light outputs to suit each area. This continuity is further enhanced by a specially developed coupling that joins the luminaires to give continuous runs. Also designed and manufactured by RIDI, the coupling matches the profile of the luminaires but is slightly smaller, thus adding additional visual interest .

The first of the new buildings, known as Building 509, contains a conference centre, three floors of offices and a gymnasium. This is connected via a three-storey atrium containing a 900-seater restaurant to another new building called Campus Gateway - or Building 519. As its name suggests, Campus Gateway forms the entrance to the entire Research and Development site. It contains a further three floors of offices, with a mix of open plan and cellular office space, as well as meeting rooms.

All of the AIDA luminaires are fitted with fully dimmable control gear, linked to an ECS Philips lighting control system to allow for dimming of the artificial lighting in relation to the amount of natural daylight entering the space.

Lighting throughout the buildings is controlled by an ECS Philips system to provide daylight linking and presence detection for optimum energy consumption.

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