Prize(s) Honorable Mentions
Lighting Design/Product Company Dot Dash
Lead Designers Brian Cheap
Other Designer's names Chen Chen, Emma Weaver
Architecture Company Gensler
Client Confidential
Photo Credits Garrett Rowland
Completion Date January 2023
Project Location New York, NY
Entry DescriptionAfter securing a long term lease in a prominent development for their new headquarters, the client challenged the design team to create an office that was timeless yet innovative. Designing the project during Covid, the design team responded by creating a lighting solution that can adapt to or evolve with unforeseen workplace demands. Power Over Ethernet, PoE, is a system by which all lights are powered by low voltage data cabling. The lighting system serves as the infrastructure for other technologies, including indoor air quality monitoring, shading, space utilization, room monitoring, security, and scheduling. By utilizing all low voltage power, lighting can be easily moved or controls settings can be changed without an electrician. This solution allows simple, inexpensive changes and ultimate flexibility as the firm's needs change or working styles react to global events. Transmitting power with Cat5e cabling, each individual fixture is digitally addressed so that light levels are tailored to each occupants needs rather than preset scenes for large areas.
Sustainability ApproachSurpassing New York code requirements, daylight sensors are utilized in all spaces throughout the project, an important energy conservation measure for a building with unobstructed daylight. A dense 10’ maximum on center sensor network coordinated with individual fixture zoning drastically reduces energy consumption by up to 50% by turning on smaller zones in reaction to occupancy.
Full scale mockups of the office were used to determine that the majority of occupants were most comfortable at 25 footcandles on the task surface, below IES recommended light levels. The offices were designed to achieve 50 footcandles, required by some employees when reading paper documents. Based on these results, lights were programmed to come on at half output, reducing energy consumption by 50%, and then manually dim to 100%.
