Lighting in Design August-September 2017

lighting solutions; owing to the collaborative ap- proach on Alex Mall, they were able to get the right outcome within the budget available. “By choosing an indirect lighting scheme, the budget for the mall lighting was significantly lower,” says van den Berg. “We worked with the Quantity surveyors from Quanticost, architects from MDS and the client project manager to come up with a design that was more aligned with the budget. To avoid dark patches, MDS Architecture did a great job of intro- ducing natural light in an attractive way to areas of the mall where the light levels were low. The QS also did a good job of adjusting costs to make the required changes in the budget possible. The main contractor, Mike Buyskes Construction andWalter Staal, contributed with the design, installation and successful implementation of the skylights installed in the mall area.” The final result illustrates that by working as a co- hesive team from the start, it is possible to produce a successful result – on time and within budget.

to ensure that none of the light sources could be seen and to introduce natural light in dark spots. The combination of natural and accent lighting gave us a great final result.” The lighting inside Alex Mall was such that the architects did not need to create special lighting for the Living Museum housed within the mall, notes Pretorius. “We installed security lighting (up to 50 lux) around the perimeter of the mall and uniform lighting in the parking areas. The soccer fields on the roof required a uniform spread of light and we needed to ensure that there were no dark spots on the field. Genlux undertook simulations and we used 400W high pressure stadium lights on masts to achieve uniform illumination.” Although lighting at the lift and escalators landings has to comply with Occupational Health & Safety Standards, the supplier Schindler has its own standards for easier maintenance; for this reason, these areas required additional lighting. Pretorius explains that although budget con- straints are often a pressure point in terms of

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LiD AUG/SEP 2017