DALI Lighting Awards 2021

>> DALI Lighting Awards 2021 - Winners

Company: Helvar
Project: The Spine
Location: Liverpool, UK
Category: Commercial / Professional

Judges' comments

The WINNER of the DALI Lighting Award in the Commercial/Professional category is Helvar for The Spine, a new building in Liverpool, UK. Helvar supplied a DALI lighting control system for the 70,000 sq.ft. space occupied by the Royal College of Physicians across 7 floors in The Spine.

This is a beautifully designed building that seamlessly combines artificial and natural lighting to create a bright and welcoming environment.

The building is noteworthy in and of itself for achieving the WELL Platinum Standard – the first in the UK to do so – and is considered one of the healthiest workspaces for physical and mental wellbeing in the UK. Lighting contributes to this enormously, so the extra attention taken by Helvar to create an intelligent, fully addressable DALI lighting control system is highly commendable.

The additional focus on biophilia should also be commended. It’s so important for workspaces to have a more considered approach that is tailored towards the wellbeing of its users, and the introduction of plant life is an ideal way to do this. While in some workspace projects, this can feel like a token gesture or an add-on, the way in which it is integrated into the fabric of the building here is incredibly well done, while the defined light levels for the biophilic aspects help to ensure that the user experience of the facility is vastly improved.

Project overview

The Royal College of Physicians' (RCP) new home in Liverpool occupies 70,000 square feet across seven floors in The Spine, which is the UK’s first building designed to achieve the prestigious WELL Platinum standard for wellbeing – of which light is an important element.

A Helvar intelligent, fully addressable DALI lighting control system was used to ensure the quality of light and improve the user experience, including defined light levels for the biophilia aspect of the project.

The DALI system is distributed from two risers on each floor and connected via an ethernet network. DALI was chosen as it was specification compliant, with a simple topography, and cost-efficient. The system provides a one-stop solution for complex control requirements.

A range of button panels, multi-sensors, occupancy sensors and Digidim mini input units were installed using a networked system. The Helvar Cloud Gateway sends data from a lighting system to a cloud platform, where authorised users can access it through a REST API or a web browser interface.

High levels of IP integration were required in the conference spaces to allow the Helvar DALI control system to work alongside audio-visual systems. Helvar Insights has also been installed, allowing the RCP to make decisions backed up by reliable data gathered from their existing lighting control devices and sensors – and thus to improve the wellbeing of users and the efficiency of their building, and help achieve sustainability targets.

>> Helvar press release