Prize(s) Winners in LED Interior Lighting Design
Company Flux Studio
Lead Designers Brian McIntyre, Florencia Castro, Laura Dillon
Other Designer's names Fentress Architects
Client Statsbygg
Photo Credits Alan Karchmar
Completion Date 05/02/2022
Project Location Washington, DC
Entry DescriptionThe lighting design for this embassy headquarters creates connections across spaces while emphasizing their distinct identities. Layers of light bridge interior/exterior boundaries, support flexible use, and highlight features of the building that reference Norwegian architecture, landscape, and traditions.
The courtyard features views of the surrounding interior spaces, blurring the boundary between inside and out. In the courtyard-facing Garden Room, individually controllable layers of light accommodate a flexible program. Recessed downlighting provides general lighting, sconces uplight the ceiling, perimeter cove lighting recalls Norway’s low sun angles, and floor-recessed uplights emphasize the Norwegian mass timber construction. The uplights continue through an interior window into the lobby, where the design reconciles security and hospitality lighting requirements. Recessed linear lights arranged in adjoining rectangles make the space feel cohesive while allowing individual control of lighting in different areas, so security light levels can remain high as light levels in the reception area are dimmed.
Embassy requirements didn’t allow for transparency across the façade, so the building appears from the street as a cohesive series of interior spaces isolated from the city, reiterating the notion of an embassy as an isolated environment that contains another world.
Sustainability ApproachThe lighting design and lighting control design for this project satisfy the requirements of LEED v.4 and ASHRAE 90.1-2010. LED technology was used for all light fixtures. The final energy analysis demonstrated a 27% reduction in interior lighting energy load compared to the ASHRAE 90.1-2010 baseline. The exterior lighting design achieved a 71% reduction in energy use compared to the energy code minimum requirement, due largely to LED lighting. The lighting design also supports occupant comfort by providing dimmable controls for 97% of its regular occupied spaces.
