Kingfisher Lighting has been involved in the recent completion of the multi-million pound development of the new Joseph Chamberlain College in Highgate, Birmingham.

Sitting on Haden Circus, off Belgrave Middleway, Birmingham this £39m project designed by architects Nicholas Hare is based around an iconic semicircular design.

BAM Construct UK Limited were responsible for the design and build of the project, whilst Couch Perry Wilkes were appointed as M&E Consultants. Via Haden Young, the appointed Electrical Contractors, Kingfisher Lighting were invited to design a lighting scheme for the principal amenity areas including the main concourse, landscaped gardens and the main carpark. In addition, Kingfisher designed and supplied the floodlighting for a multi use games area.

Presented with this exciting opportunity, Kingfisher Lighting’s team of LIF qualified lighting engineers designed an elaborate scheme utilising the wide range of lighting available.

For the concourse, the architecturally inspired Delta Indirect was specified with 150W metal halide lamp. With a defined open form, this indirect amenity luminaire co-ordinated with the open design of the campus. The indirect lighting effect created a soft lighting ambiance. The Delta Indirect was also specified throughout the main car park area, providing an average illuminance of 19 Lux.

Architectural features, the building façade and the landscaped area were subtly illuminated via the specification of the Inground 260 architectural buried uplighter, featuring a symmetrical distribution and a 70W metal halide light source. Continuing the high quality selection of materials, the Inground 260 was specified with a stainless steel ring and counter ring finished flush to ground. To provide additional orientation lighting to the landscaped area, the versatile Deco 1 bollard was specified complete with 70W metal halide light source.

All of the amenity lighting and bollards throughout the campus were finished polyester powder coated in grey for a professional look, to ensure cohesion with the cladding of the building.

Perimeter lighting to the rear main buildings incorporated the Alfresco bulkhead. The Alfresco is made of die cast aluminium finished polyester powder coated with a hooded face complete with 38 Watt 2D control gear and lamp.

The MUGA area to the rear of the campus was located at a lower elevation overlooked by a building and enclosed by a 2m wall. To achieve the required lighting levels for the scheme, Stewart Weaver, Principal Project Engineer at Kingfisher proposed a lighting design incorporating wall mounted floodlights and a unique column arrangement fixed to the exterior wall to overcome the physical challenges of the location. The specified floodlight was the Stellar 2 fitted with 400W metal halide lamp achieving an average illuminance of 143 Lux.

Commenting on the award of the contract, Stewart Weaver stated, “Providing our client with the opportunity to source the complete external lighting package from one company, together with the design capability and technical expertise of the wider team certainly contributed to the successful award of this exciting project.“