Facade and architectural lighting – Stratford / London, UK
International Quarter London (IQL) in Stratford, East London, has a new beating heart – a pavilion with restaurants, a visitor center and a rooftop terrace along with a bar. Its stand-out location at the gateway to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park meant that its design had to be just as impressive. What’s more, the new building needed to be at the forefront of sustainability. The result is a spectacular pavilion designed by award-winning architects ACME with a sustainable timber facade that has contributed to the building’s outstanding BREEAM rating. Flexible OSRAM lighting strips trace the striking lines of the wooden elements.
Details:
Location: Stratford / London, UK
Year: 2021
The new IQL Pavilion in Stratford built almost entirely from timber is already an architectural landmark. Lightweight in appearance, it offers 10,000 m2 of space but seems smaller than that. Its rippled facade, large glass surfaces and horizontal fins make it look distinctive. The appealing timber design has turned the building into an inviting place to eat, drink and socialize. Inside, the Pavilion houses several restaurants and a rooftop bar. With OSRAM LED strips accentuating its benches and steps, the roof terrace is a stand-out feature with views across the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the London skyline. ACME used a sustainable design concept boasting quality and expertise. The innovative OSRAM LED strips and DALI drivers fitted perfectly into this concept.
Sustainable and aesthetic
The Pavilion’s timber structure combines eye-catching aesthetics with outstanding sustainability. On the one hand, timber is a renewable raw material, and on the other hand, the cross-laminated and glue-laminated panels have a much better carbon footprint than traditional materials such as steel or concrete. The lighting brings out the organic lines of the building. LINEARlight FLEX Protect LOW POWER 500 strips trace every rib and groove in natural light, emphasizing the contours of this unique architecture. The material and lights blend into one. Thanks to their flexibility, the LED strips could be mounted in such a way that they stay invisible, but their light perfectly illuminates the wooden fins. The 500 lm/m types have a low luminous intensity and accentuate the architecture without distracting from it. And the light management system uses scheduled shutdowns and fine-tuned dimming scenes to follow changes in daylight. The low-power LEDs and daylight-dependent dimming also contribute to energy efficiency. It therefore comes as no surprise that the IQL Pavilion has achieved an outstanding 92% at BREEAM, the leading sustainability assessment method for buildings and infrastructure.
An ideal combination: LINEARlight FLEX and DALI drivers
OSRAM OTi DALI drivers were chosen to set up a functional and easy-to-use light management system that met both energy-saving and lighting needs. “Aesthetics played a big role in this project, so I thought extremely smooth dimming was very important,” says lighting designer David Gilbey, formerly of NDYLIGHT, and adds: “With OSRAM DALI drivers it works really well. And another important thing is that you can rely on OSRAM. Even if there’s a problem, they will take the reins and solve it for you. That’s invaluable.” One challenge for David Gilbey’s team was to find locations for the drivers because only some of them could be installed inside. Fortunately, the lighting specialists had a unique outdoor product to choose from: the powerful OSRAM DALI driver in the protected version (IP67).
Flexessories make installation very easy
The crew at NDYLIGHT also had to find an answer to how the LINEARlight FLEX Protect LOW POWER 500 units could be mounted most effectively on the “breathing” timber. Normally, they would be mounted to an aluminum profile or surface. But because of the timber’s specific surface structure and sensitivity this was not possible. Tests wide range of OSRAM mounting options produced the ideal solution: protected clips made from silicone (LF-CLIP Protect IP67).
Second to none
The requirements for the lighting at the Pavilion were demanding to say the least and didn’t allow for compromises in aesthetics, sustainability and functionality. With its varied product portfolio and unparalleled expertise, OSRAM was the ideal partner, helping to realize smooth dimming and appropriate energy efficiency as well as a natural lighting effect matching the timber. The high product quality and strong project support made everyone’s job easy. And because all the components in the Pavilion lighting system come with a guarantee of up to seven years and as a matching system from a single source, reliability and durability were also second to none.
| Project partners | |
|---|---|
| Stratford City Business District LTD | Customer |
| ACME | Architecture |
| Lendlease Construction | Construction Manager |
| NDYLIGHT | Lighting Specialist |
| Norman Disney & Young | MEP, Sustainability |
| Penn Elcom | VAR Partner |
Products used
