Luminaire: BionicPro Series

Amazing Ceiling Wash Optic…

(but still, the ocean views get all the attention).

The Sage Hill School Science Building provides a cross-functional new facility for unifying existing science programs previously scattered in portables across campus. Its state-of-the-art learning spaces promote discovery through collaboration and classroom experiences. It fuels innovative teaching and expands the science program to benefit the greater community through partnerships with universities, non-profit organizations and industry leaders. Plus, its high elevation gets bonus points for offering students and faculty breathtaking views of Newport Beach and the sparkling Pacific beyond.

Designed with input from faculty, parents and industry professionals, the building layout creates spaces devoted to each scientific discipline – facilitating collaborative, project-based learning and introducing opportunities for real life problem-solving. The Title 24-friendly P46 direct/indirect from Prudential Lighting provides the ideal ceiling wash optic for the classrooms.

The learning spaces support both core curriculum and expanded offerings such as robotics, engineering, astronomy and artificial intelligence. And there is an emphasis on providing practical applications for cutting-edge science, preparing students to become innovators equipped to drive a high-tech economy. The design team was also able to identify and respond to the desire for expanding the Public Purpose and Service Learning mission, implementing science-oriented events and interactive opportunities benefiting the community.

 

Smiles All Around.

Serene setting and simple materials… get smiles all around.

The stunning, ultra-modern Hicks Orthodontics is cool enough to make you want to get braces put back on again. Allllmost. When the existing Knoxville, Tennessee, practice decided to expand to better cater to a nearby underserved rural are in 2012, they chose a quiet, wooded, mostly undeveloped area as the site. Right off US Route 321 about 5 miles northwest of Lenoir City, the new structure by BarberMcMurry Architects has great visibility to passing traffic and is close to local schools, making appointments ultra-convenient.

The architects made multiple visits to the Knoxville main office to observe and better understand patient and staff flow. The plan they then proposed links the waiting area and operatory space at opposite ends of the building with a single eight-foot wide corridor. Consultation areas are cleverly placed to obscure the neighboring gas station and convenience store, while eight orthodontic stations maximize views of the trees outside.

High-volume glass around the waiting area captures natural light, while metal window surrounds and roof overhangs are positioned to help shade the glass while still allowing ample views and interior daylight. Inside, Prudential Lighting’s P43 recessed and P46 fixtures are installed throughout the building, complementing the edited palette of glass, metal, cypress wood, brick and concrete. From the polished concrete floors, to the clear-sealed cypress ceilings, the space is airy, clean and bright – achieving the progressive feel the architects intended while remaining respectful of the rural setting.

Bargain-Hunters…

Find Style in Spades at Cole Haan.

Cole Haan wanted its factory outlet store shopping experience to reflect the same tasteful modern beach house vibe as its full-price stores. Alas, even great-looking new retail spaces have to comply with each state’s energy requirements. But leading retail design firm Callison was willing to take on the challenge, proposing an open layout accented with natural wood, chrome details and an inviting color palette to complement the stylish merchandise.

For lighting, Callison turned to Archit Jain, design principal of internationally-known, Los Angeles-based firm Lighting Design Alliance (LDA). Jain proposed a combo of fluorescent and ceramic metal halide lamp sources to enhance the space while achieving a 60% reduction in wattage compared to a typical Halogen design. Undoubtedly, the design’s most visible fixture is the P40 from Prudential Lighting. Prudential’s P40 is pendant-mounted in rows to highlight merchandise at visually comfortable angles from all sides. The luminaire’s clean detailing and slender proportions are a perfect fit for the space, providing a cost-effective, low-energy, low-maintenance solution that’s visually compatible with the architecture. (Top that.)

The stores have been well-received (to put it modestly), from the big wigs at corporate to the lighting and retail design trades. According to Mark Genest, Cole Haan VP of Retail for Factory and First Quality Stores, ‘The new design has helped us exceed all financial goals for our outlet stores.’ The project not only garnered kudos from the client, but from the designer’s peers – it was given an Award of Merit from the IESNA and earned First Place, Outlet Stores category in the Chain Store Age Retail Store of the Year Design Competition.

USC Legends.

“Through this portal enter the world’s greatest athletes.”

This inscription of bravado above the arched entryway to USC’s spectacular new John McKay Center declares the university’s athletic ideal. Though it may seem a little heavy on the hubris, what lies within backs up USC’s commitment to nurturing its student athletes. They have quite literally put their money where their proverbial mouth is, with a breathtaking $70 million, 110,000sf state-of-the-art facility.

The Center, named for USC’s legendary football coach and unveiled in August 2012, is a remarkable showcase of athletic prowess, a tribute to past champions and a powerful recruiting lure for the aspiring. Award-winning Los Angeles-based RA-DA was charged with designing the McKay Center’s interiors as a clean, modern counterpoint to the exterior’s collegiate Romanesque Revival architecture. RA-DA’s explicit mission was to respect the campus aesthetic and communicate the university’s rich academic and athletic heritage.

‘Despite its regal qualities, the spaces and interiors of the Center would be somehow youthful and energetic,’ said Rania Alomar, principal at RA-DA in charge of the John McKay Center’s interior design. ‘We decided early on to create zones within the project that were active and vibrant nodes. These would be rich in color – either the USC red or gold – and would contain graphics, logos and information on aspects of the sports program and USC history. In some cases, we used the lighting to activate these zones by creating lines of light that added to the strong graphic.’ At the entry points to the strength and conditioning areas in the basement, RA-DA placed Prudential Lighting’s P60 Series, creating repeating lines of light in the corridors leading into the training area.

‘We had this language of a linear light element that marks the space down in the basement where the athletic facilities are,’ said Alomar, who found the linear P62 ideal for this purpose. ‘These again are really simple fixtures that achieve exactly what we wanted, which is this continuous line of light. So that the feature is not the fixture that is getting all the attention, it is the light.’ Alomar wanted the lighting to suggest power, energy and vibrancy to reflect what athletes do there – train to barrel down a field, soar on a basketball court and beat records with ripping speeds. ‘We used [the P62] again in this staccato manner, marching down the corridors, sort of going boom, boom, boom, down the halls,’ said Alomar, who added that she used the P63 in other parts of the interior. ‘It creates this punctuated rhythm of light down the corridors. We use them in this graphic way. We are not glorifying the fixture. We are integrating the light into the design, so it contributes to the overall intent.’

Lack of ambient light made lighting the basement Alomar’s greatest challenge. The lighting needed to be highly functional to obliterate the subterranean feel, and do so without diminishing the distinct design elements. ‘The lighting was critical on this level as we did not want it to feel like a basement. We used a lot of the P59 coves. It’s a great fixture because it achieves what you want in a light cove – it throws the light really evenly down onto the surface without being visible to the eye. Wherever appropriate, we used indirect lighting and coves to add a general sense of lightness without visible fixtures, raising the overall ambient light in the space.’

The project architect, Los Angeles-based HTNB, selected Prudential’s P63 for both design continuity and even, comfortable light on the flat screens in the computer lab. This academic hub is dedicated to producing student athletes as competitive in the classroom as they are in sports, so at some point that inscription above the building’s archway may have to include more than just ‘world’s greatest athletes.’

North Face Rocks.

The new North Face headquarters is the embodiment of the company’s ethos, passion and commitment to the outdoors. San Francisco-based interior designer Rapt Studio, the designer of the company’s headquarters 11 years ago, was tapped again to imagine an interior space in conceptual harmony with the outdoor retailing giant’s message and culture.

“We wanted lighting to be minimal with little or no ornamentation.”

Guided by the explicit goals to create a work environment mirroring the company’s dedication to outdoor preservation and environmental responsibility, Rapt Studio created a stunning modern, clean, crisp aesthetic space using natural materials. Ample, open windows allow natural daylight to fill interior spaces. The project had strict LEED Gold standards so Rapt Studio selected Prudential Ltg.’s slender strip of a light, the Strand Transcendent with a perforated diffuser.

“We wanted the lighting to be minimal, with little or no ornamentation, while still meeting several lighting needs,” said the project’s design principal, David Galullo. “Prudential’s BionicPro4 Slot, a 4″ wide recessed, crisp, and sleek linear fixture, was a natural fit—aligning with our LEED objectives, tight construction budget, and overall design vision.”

The project is expected to receive a LEED Gold designation. The North Face headquarters, a subsidiary of VF Corporation, is situated on VF Outdoor Campus headquarters’ 14-acre campus in Alameda along with JanSport and lucy. The campus generates 100 percent of its anticipated electricity needs via wind turbines and solar panels and features electric car charging stations. Rapt Studio designed all 160,000 sq. feet of the campus’s interior space.