Nestled in Belgravia, this Retail Street formed of numerous Grade 2 listed buildings, features a mix of shops and restaurants at the ground floor, with numerous residential properties located on the floors above.

The client wished to illuminate the façades at the entrances of the street to act as a gateway, accentuating the rhythm of the architecture, promoting interest from afar, subtly aiding navigation and wayfinding, and creating a pleasant backdrop to the events happening within the street.

Extensive product research and in-situ testing was undertaken to identify a suitable luminaire that could be used for the uplighting of the buildings, giving consideration to lighting quality, physical appearance, cost, and most importantly, light distribution qualities, to ensure that no spill light would cause distraction to the residents of the buildings.

There were no direct electrical links between the different façades being illuminated, therefore to avoid the need to lay new physical cables, the different façades are all controlled via a lighting control system local to the façade. These discrete control systems all work seamlessly together via mobile telephone network communications, giving secure remote cloud software access, which also assists the client’s facilities and maintenance team.

For normal operation, a white lighting scheme is utilised however, to mark special events and celebrations, a number of different coloured lighting scenes have been programmed. These special lighting scenes are all programmed into a calendar which, using the cloud software access, the client’s facilities team can adjust for changing dates of festivals and to celebrate occasional one-off events. The lighting controls smoothly dim the feature façade lighting to off at curfew, and ensure that, post any special events, the lighting returns to the normal white light appearance, ensuring a fully automated lighting installation is achieved.

Planning Consultant: DP9
Lead Contractor: Grangewood Builders
Electrical Contractor: Solomon Electrical Services
Photography: James Newton Photographs