A substantial detached Victorian house, restored and redesigned by Livit Construction utilising the very best in modern fixtures and fittings to form a state of the art home, ideal for modern family life and entertaining with interlinking and flexible accommodation. Standing within landscaped garden grounds in one of Edinburgh’s most exclusive areas, The Hermitage offers magnificent views of the City skyline including Edinburgh Castle and The Braid Hills along with extensive off road parking.

Lighting control have programmed scene and fade control in each area using the mode lighting Evolution lighting control system. In two local areas the mode Scenestyle was chosen as a solution a demo of this product can be found here.

The programming has been completed for the viewing of the property but is of course fully customisable once the new owners take control of the property.

Additional features which can be added include timed control, remote lighting control via the Internet, Exit corridors and daylight harvesting.

Lighting Control have been involved in the project providing Commissioning of the lighting control system including integration to the existing BMS system.

In addition to the commissioning work Lighting control provided an on-site engineer to make alterations to the complex design of the DMX RGB control and to provide lighting controls expertise alongside the contractors electricians.

The Apex Waterloo Place Hotel is a luxury property that sets the standard for the ultimate in city chic.

‘Urban glamour meets contemporary comfort’ is very much the philosophy behind Apex Waterloo Place. This luxurious four-star hotel boasts the facilities and attention to detail to rival those of a five star property.

Lighting control have completed a major lighting control project in this prestige Edinburgh Development.

The works included Extensive DMX Control, Scene setting and multi-page menu controls and time based control. This programming covers all the main public spaces of the hotel including bars, reception , gym and the stylish modern swimming pool.

Lighting control also provided extensive contractor support commissioning 3rd party dmx products and fault finding installed RGB colour controls.

Commissioning was carried out with the client interior designer during two sessions of scene setting to allow for arrangement of furniture and to allow evening settings to be adjusted.

255 Bath Street

Lighting controls recently commissioned and consulted on system design for 225 Bath street in central Glasgow. The office space has been comprehensively refurbished to a high standard in order to meet the expectations of modern occupiers.

The refurbishment at 225 bath street included a change to the layout and lighting of the entrance Lobby,  with combined use of 0-10V controlled up-lighting

with electronic fluorescent ballasts, together with DMX LED lighting units and drivers

controlled from an Mode Evolution lighting control system.

Thanks to the intuitive controls and lighting of the double height entrance a high profile presence is provided onto Bath Street at all times of day

Crowne Plaza Glasgow

Lighting controls undertook the programming and  commissioning of the recently refurbished Argyll and Castle conference suites at the Crowne Plaza Glasgow.

Both large Suites have multiple partitions to allow the rooms to be used in different configurations.  Mode evolution packs were used in combination with Key switch plates to provide intuitive functionality. This allows members of staff to recall specific lighting scenes dependant on any room configuration.

Argyle Suite

]]> http://www.lightingcontrol.co.uk/2008/09/crowne-plaza-glasgow/feed/ 0 http://www.lightingcontrol.co.uk/2008/08/barony-castle/ http://www.lightingcontrol.co.uk/2008/08/barony-castle/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:18:17 +0000 admin http://www.lightingcontrol.co.uk/?p=124

Barony Castle in the Scottish Borders is a traditional baronical castle which in recent years has become a venue within the De Veres Estate.

Lighting Control’s installers were tasked with the electrical contracting and lighting controls engineering for the refurbishment of their reception, restaurant and bar area. The simple lighting control allows impulse switching with memory.

Engraved MK Grid momentary switches were used as retrofit controls in this refurbishment project.

Bespoke light fittings were used throughout the project including a number of fittings made with natural materials including antlers and leather.

You can understand control panels for a lighting control system being placed in the traditional spot near the entry exit point of the room. I don’t think this is the future of lighting control and comes from the old technology of electric light switches but that is for different rant!

On many of these sites I find Audio Visual control panels in the same place at the entry exit point of the room.

When I was 16 I bought myself a simple Sony Midi System ( CD , Tuner ,Cassette ) with a simple remote control. This allowed me my first glimpse into luxury control!!

From the comfort of my bed or from my easy chair or indeed from my computer desk I could quickly and simply control my music for the room from each location. Not rocket science I hear you say but really effective simple control.

Move forward fifteen years and you would think that the intervening years would have moved us forward especially with a large budget on a multi-room penthouse

project. However even with a well known control system and a huge budget the control in the bedrooms of theses projects have arguably a less flexible and overall a lower overall standard of control than my bedroom did fifteen years ago.

Why ?

Who does the design of these projects ?

(I often find myself asking mostly under my breath). There are generally three different answers; The Salesperson of the control system told us to put them next to the light switches, The Electrician or developer who had no drawings had to make the decision and went with what they know, The Lighting Designer or architect who spent hours of quality work on the fixture placement and selection and did the controls as an after thought.

Am I being a bit harsh on all these individuals?

The Salesperson should not be doing the design of the lighting or of the controls. For one thing if a salesperson designs anything they will always design with a bias to there products which may not be the best solution. Design is an involved process that requires interaction with other design professionals involved who a sales person generally does not have access to.

The Electrician who does not have a drawing goes back to what they know. Electricians are trained in electrical system design. This design is design of systems to comply with the wiring regulations and the training does not extend to anything but simple positioning of items for ease of use. If I am being really harsh the level of training for lighting given to most electricians is limited to two-way switching with a number of sparks struggling with an intermediate. In fairness as well a building site with deadlines and other contractors is no place to be making cool calculated design decisions.

Lastly there is our Architect or Lighting designer who as I said has spent hours of time making a really great (hopefully) lighting design for the project. On a number of occasions that’s where they stop. The Drawings are produced with no thought to lighting control whatsoever. On many occasions the design is produced with no thought to maximum loadings of control gear which is really unforgivable but I would say that not thought to lighting control is equally wrong. In this article today I’m only talking about the relatively simple design decision of placement of controls not even looking at the next stage of what these controls do and how they interact with other control in different positions. The limit for most designers is to write a multi-scene scene setting for a system in the form of a table giving circuit numbers and relative intensities. On the placement of the controls the designers all seem to have been to the same training as the electricians and cannot bring themselves to look out of the box and try and make the design better. Architects and designers talk about movement of users through a design as a very important concept in the design process. In the modern automated house the movement of individuals is dictated by control of the lighting and audio visual systems within the space and should hence get a healthy proportion of attention from professionals with suitable understanding in controls at the design stage.

Lighting controls can serve many purposes. In a commercial project they can ensure that the designers vision is maintained night after night, year after year hence realising the value of the design work maintaining the “look” In this application the placement of controls is usually quite simple but I still see horrific examples of getting it wrong. In Domestic properties the placement of controls is much more complicated. Modern designs involve open plan areas with many entry and exit points within large open spaces. The solution given is often to throw loads of controllers at these points and have them all providing the same functionality.

Neil Silver is the Technical Director of Lighting Control

He is an Electrical and Electronic Engineer with many years experience in controls, Audio Visual and Lighting Systems