Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre
London
Built in the mid eighties, Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre had become tired looking and was in need of a major refurbishment. British Land acquired the site in 2013, and after a period of consultation and planning, embarked upon a £12m upgrade of the centre, aimed at attracting premium tenants and increasing footfall.
For lighting design practice BDP, the brief was to design a lighting solution that would manage ceiling brightness to avoid gloominess during the day, and create a sophisticated atmosphere at night.
For the internal malls, a white light and RGB stretched-membrane cove detail was developed to create a bright, white impression during the day and a colour variable feature at night. One of the driving factors behind the design of the cove detail was the need to eliminate roosting sites for pigeons. The result is a sealed, vertical light box with a very clean appearance that uses LED Linear VarioLED Flex Hydra LD25 W840 for the white light element, and VarioLED Flex RGB LD15 for the colour.
Most of the coves throughout the centre are linear, but in the Circus area they are circles of different diameters. The linear coves use more than 180 fixtures that were custom made by Architainment specifically for this project.
In the colonnade area, various lengths of VarioLED Flex Venus HD6 W827 TV IP67 are concealed between the cedar ceiling slats to create 14 circular lighting features. These are invisible during the day, and fade in at night to create a warm glowing soffit feature.
The centre now benefits from near daylight quality lighting in the malls that transitions to restrained colour in the evenings, and warm light that only comes on at night to create a pleasant ambience in the colonnade area.