Boston IES Award: Lighting Solution Center

The 2018 Boston Illumination Awards results are in, and Hartranft Lighting Design has received a Section Award for their design of Hubbell Lighting Solution Center in Greenville, SC.

Here is a brief overview of the project:

This manufacturer, with a history of producing some of the World’s most recognized industrial and commercial lighting and control brands, provides on-site product and application training forto a variety of customers in the construction trades.  Seeking to refresh their LEED Platinum education center, this project consisted of a demolition and remodel to an existing footprint, adding a new classroom, & application vignettes, a gathering space and circulation areas to accommodate the nearly xseveral hundred  number of customers training and events held annually. 

The goals for the design team included modernizing the facility while connecting the company’s history with its future roadmap for the future; delivering a memorable customer experiences and developing a plan to support multiple customer groups at one time. A completely windowless space;  - the improved sight lines and openness with glass walls and exposed ceilings needed to be balanced by acoustically separating spaces that would be occupied concurrently. 

Specific lighting design challenges included

• Consideration for the needs of product management, personnel and training staff
• Effectively integrating product brands that are predominantly industrial and commercially oriented.
• Only products available from the manufacturer could be used for this project.
• Incorporating lighting fundamentals training opportunities into each space

The result is a cohesive design, with an appropriate amount of product demonstrated in context, as well as up close and in detail.  Application vignettes and classroom lighting needed to be flexible enough to teach color principles, luminaire photometry, lighting techniques, and good-better-best strategies so as to tacitly promote product brands.  Contemporary topics such as dynamic white lighting also needed to be introduced for discussion. Lighting products also need ed to be replaceable as new technologies emerge.
​
The lighting also had to be designed to maintain the facility’s existing LEED platinum criteria and include wired and wireless control capability – with a tight completion schedule allowing parts of the facility to remain open during construction.