UK: Office lighting specialist Future Designs has designed and supplied three types of bespoke lighting units to illuminate the passenger areas of stations on the underground section of London’s future Elizabeth Line.
The lighting concept for the station concourse, escalator and platform areas aims to emphasise the spatial envelope rather than the light fittings themselves, while LEDs were selected to reduce energy and maintenance requirements, and thus lifecycle costs.
The main lighting on the station concourses will come from Future Designs’ Ikon uplighter luminaires, mounted on top of wayfinding ‘totems’ within Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Bond Street and Whitechapel stations. Instead of pointing down in to the passenger area, these powerful upward-facing lights will shine onto the ceilings which will reflect the light back into the passenger space.
The totems are 7 to 11 m apart, and the luminaires needed to produce 58 000 lumens or 850 W, compared to 5 000 lumens or 32 W for typical office lights. The lit face is relatively small at 685 mm by 185 mm, and the large amount of heat generated is dissipated through a substantial custom-designed aluminium heat sink which takes the weight of each unit to around 80 kg.
In the event of a power failure lighting will be provided by Ikon Emergency high-level and low-level lights mounted on the sides of the wayfinding totems and vertical luminaires mounted on the front faces. Each emergency system is 35 000 lumens or 230 W, compared to 200 lumens or 5 W for typical emergency lighting in an office. Power will be supplied from a 230 V generator.
The escalator tunnels will be illuminated with Future Designs’ Plinth luminaires, which are located within the deck area between escalators. The LEDs are at a low level in the uplighter fixtures, behind a black louvre which prevents passengers looking directly at the very bright light sources and reduces glare to ensure that faces can be clearly seen on CCTV images. The lights will be close to passengers using the escalators, and so the panels are required to withstand a 1 000 N load applied over a 50 mm x 50 mm area.
Future Designs developed the lights at its own expense, and retains the full intellectual property rights leaving it free to sell its designs elsewhere.
