Siteco sheds light on Dublin quayside

'Nautical' lighting from Siteco is bringing drama to the night scene at Dublin's prestigious George's Quay area.

'Nautical' lighting from Siteco is bringing drama to the night scene at Dublin's prestigious George's Quay area.

The company's Mirrortec system acts as an avenue of light between the towering office blocks, that leads down to the landmark and itself beautifully lit Custom House building on the other side of the River Liffey by the O'Connell Bridge.

The brief to London-based Equation Lighting Design by architects Keane Murphy Duff for Irish Life was to create a destination night-time space that added a new quality of external space within the prestigious city centre site.

Rather than bolt-on solutions, the lighting system needed to integrate with the architecture of George's Quay, which mixes "natural" stone with glazed facades, to create a symbiotic and harmonious relationship.

Siteco's Mirrortec system was specified for its ability to light large areas with fewer luminaires, thereby minimising the impact of lighting equipment while still bringing a distinctive visual element to the space.

Lighting columns that have the look of a ship's mast feature a total of three Mirrortec R1 mini aluminium projectors - two on the inside and one on the outside, to reflect a higher ratio of the light into the central courtyard and away from the office facades.

This ratio carries through to the Mirrortec Reflectors above, with a smaller one on the outside of the mast and a larger one on the inside.

"The result is a safe and softy illuminated external space that has the visual drama at night that was intended".

"The scheme has been well received by the architect, client and general public," said Siteco's Sales and Marketing manager Paul Hiriart.

Minimal light spill means systems such as these are sometimes the only solution for the low maintenance and glare-free illumination of large areas such as the courtyard at George's Quay where glare from direct light sources is undesirable.

The light of the Mirrortec spotlight is projected upwards onto the concave surfaces of the facetted mirror reflector that breaks up the light into numerous individual light spots and reflects it onto surrounding surfaces without glare.

The facets are attached to an aluminium honeycomb structure that is enclosed in extruded sectional aluminium to complement the design of the projectors, on the principle that reflectors are normally the most visible components of the system and need to be attractive as well as functional.

The reflectors are extremely lightweight and can be mounted in a variety of ways - on ceilings with pendants or cord hangers, walls, or even the lighting columns themselves as evidenced at George's Quay.

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