Philips illuminates London

Royal Philips Electronics in association with Architainment Lighting have installed LED lighting solution at London's County Hall, using ground-breaking LED ColorReach Powercore technology.

Offering exceptional lighting projection of up to 500 feet, Philips ground breaking ColorReach Powercore technology has ensured that County Hall is now as much of an iconic landmark on London's Southbank by night as it is by day.

Once the headquarters of local government for London, County Hall is, perhaps, better known for its tourist attractions, businesses and hotels, all of which have made their home within this grand architectural space.

Now, the full height of the impressive Edwardian baroque facade has been illuminated to stunning effect using Philips ColorReach Powercore, a revolutinary innovation in exterior LED floodlighting.

Sitting on London's Southbank, the main 6 storey building's equally famous neighbour is the London Eye, which in recent years has also employed LEDs to maximise its appeal both by day and by night.

Inspired by the results of these dynamic lighting effects property management company, Metropolitan Estates, were keen to see how they could apply similar lighting techniques to the facade of County Hall.

With LED development moving ever forward, the project was able to take full advantage of the latest introduction of Philips ColorReach Powercore and the benefits it offered ensuring its 2 main objectives were fulfilled.

The first of these was that the illumination of the building should allow County Hall to become a distinctive and attractive landmark on the night time scene in its own right as well as providing a sense of cohesion with other attractions along this popular stretch of the river.

Secondly, the lighting solution should be flexible enough to accommodate the requirements of corporate clients who hire out the area for their own events.

The thinking here being that the lighting could be changed to reflect the brand colours of the individual companies involved.

The performance of Philips ColorReach Powercore met both these criteria.

ColorReach Powercore is the first LED architectural floodlight which is powerful enough to illuminate large-scale structures having more lumen output than any other comparable fixture for exterior illumination.

Indeed, it offers over 5,000 lumens over an unprecedented light projection of over 500 feet.

As Peter Castelton, Managing Director of Metropolitan Estates explains, "Having seen what Philips ColorReach Powercore was capable of at the initial trial we were completely convinced that this was the right solution for us".

"We have certainly not seen anything that can beat its flexibility, superb projection capability and excellent precision control".

"What is more is that it provides saturated colour output at significantly less cost for installation, operation and maintenance than traditional light sources - and in today's current economic climate these cost elements simply cannot be ignored".

Indeed Installation was a simple matter of replacing the existing fittings with the ColorReach modules.

Thus,16 fixtures were positioned at intervals between the columns enhancing the broad sweep of the crescent shaped entrance of the building while 4 modules were spaced along the facade itself.

In effect, therefore, each 290 Watt module replaced 600 W conventional fittings, a saving just over 50\\\%.

To manage and deliver the light shows Philips iPlayer3 controller was housed remotely in a conveniently located workroom inside the building's main entrance.

The unique split design of ColorReach means that each half of the fixture is individually addressable and controllable.

This offers the potential for example to use one beam on the module's lower half to bathe the vertical plane with colour at street level whilst utilising a different beam angle to project a contrasting or complementary colour hundreds of feet up the building's walls In all, County Hall now has a dynamic lighting solution which is both sustainable and ultimately flexible, enhancing its colonnaded crescent for all those that work and reside there as well as the millions of tourists that visit each year.

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