Lighting in Design February-March 2018

only paint used on the exterior of the building was on the ground floor. “From a light- ing perspective, the directive from the beginning of the project from our side was to make maximum use of natural lighting within the

at the back of the site, and we had to maximise the yard area to make every spare square metre of space beneficial for the client,” ex- plained Rassmann. The starting point for the design was to locate and size t he new o ff i ce building – named

building to reduce electrical consumption,” said Rassmann, noting that, “Not using LED lighting wasn't even a question. All lights in the building are LED”. He said that it had become easier to spec LED lighting these days, as the range of options available has grown significantly. The façade of the building was designed and sculpted to balance the natural light received at different times of the day.The east

Rubela Park – on the site to maximise the yard space, while ensuring the new building would have an optimal solar orientation. After careful consideration and analysis it was decided to orientate the building lengthways in a north-south direction to maximise the yard space, and place as much office space as possible on the north side of the building and locate all the service spaces to the south of the building. As the length of

façade has large windows to allow as much indirect natural light in as possible through- out the day with vertical louvres to screen out the direct sunlight in the mornings, while the north façade has large wi ndows wi t h horizontal louvres to screen out the direct sunlight at midday. The west façade has long thin horizont al windows located high up as this improves the dis- tance that natural

the structure would be facing east and west, large win- dows were placed on the east façade, to maximise natural light and reduce the electrical consump- tion of the building. Two of the cli- en t ’s ma j o r r e - ques t s were to keep the design of the building as cost effective as possible and to mi- nimise the amount of ma i ntenance required on the façade. To achieve this, the building is essentially a mod- est and efficient

light can penetrate into the office spaces.Windows on other facades are designed to ensure maximum penetration of natural light within the office space. To take maximum advantage of South Africa’s optimal solar conditions, a photovoltaic (PV) solar plant, for electricity generation, was installed on the roof of the building. PV electricity generation is

rectangular face brick box, with a raw industrial in- terior, embellished on the exterior only by a simple external translucent polycarbonate screen (which is illuminated at might), which not only moderates solar heat gain on the façades but also provides much needed shape and interest to the form of the building. Following the low maintenance brief, the

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LiD FEB/MAR 2018