Our project for the Eastern Canadian office of Peter Kiewit Infrastructure has been awarded with an Illuminating Engineering Society Section Award of Merit for lighting design.

Here is a bit about the project and what makes it so innovative:

When Peter Kiewit Infrastructure Co. planned its Eastern Canada office with a cutting-edge HVAC system—utilizing 17 mammoth rotary air circulators spread throughout its 32,000 square foot industrial space—a unique lighting design problem emerged: the large fans precluded the use of typical suspended or lay-in fixtures. How to provide illumination when the ceiling is inaccessible? The innovative solution was to use the ceiling in a completely different way by inverting the standard lighting paradigm. Rather than lighting the work surface from above, our team designed a lighting system that illuminates the ceiling from below, providing smooth, uniform, reflected light off the pure white surface. We took high-efficiency outdoor LED fixtures—which normally provide lighting for urban areas and roads—and took them somewhere these particular units had never been. Indoors. Installed nine feet above ground and directed skyward, the fixtures were mounted within the structural columns themselves; serving the second purpose of a lighting tree, and keeping the open ceiling clean and organized. The use of high-efficiency outdoor fixtures is conceptually grounded in Kiewit’s involvement in road construction and environmental stewardship. The reduced number of units, longevity of LED technology, and proximity to the floor, all substantially relieve the maintenance burden. The approach was also cost-neutral compared with alternatives.

For more information, check out our project page for the Peter Kiewit Infrastructure Co Eastern Canada Office.