Lighting in Design August-September 2017

Alex Mall, Johannesburg, SA MDS Architecture has designed a new shopping centre on a prominent site adjacent to the N3 in Alexandra, which opened to the public at the end of March 2017. Located just six kilometres from the Sandton CBD, Alex Mall was developed by McCormick Property Development in association with Valumax. The multi-level modern design includes three attractive, colourful entrances on the upper level and another two on the lower level of the long, cascading building. The top floor of Alex Mall features two soccer pitches in an Action Soccer facility, which is expected to be a significant at- traction. A food court is situated around the main entrance, including a covered outdoor section, while a large taxi rank is located on the lower level under the slab, helping to ensure that the development meets the growing needs of the surrounding community. Louis Pretorius, partner at MDS Architecture explains that the mall design included a number of bulkheads and required indirect and cove light- ing. “At MDS Architecture, we always incorporate natural light in our designs,” he says. “While the final result is radiant lighting, one of the challenges of indirect lighting is that one is only able to work with light reflections, and therefore we could only achieve a 50% output on the ground level. High ceilings of up to 8 m also contributed to the light loss factor.” Barend van den Berg, project design engineer at ING Plan, a multi-disciplinary consulting com- pany, says that they worked closely with MDS Architecture, who took them through the draw- ings early on. “Based on the brief and the draw- ings we received, we undertook simulations and also provided comparisons between indirect and direct lighting solutions. The simulation process involved building the ceiling bulkheads for the mall in Relux so the team could see exactly how the lighting would look and the light levels that would be obtained. We collaborated extensively

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LiD AUG/SEP 2017