Providing Lighting Solutions for Complex Ceiling Plans – A Case Study!
Projects with complex design components, especially ceilings require extra attention to detail when incorporating lighting into the space. Follow along as we dive into a recently completed project that required a unique lighting component.
The El Rio Grant Health project kicked off in March of 2021 when we were asked to assess a set of intricate ceiling plans and develop a concept for lighting to coincide with the intricate ceiling design. The plans displayed a ceiling constructed of cast concrete squares that formed a 36″ spacing waffle pattern on the ceiling. We were tasked with creating a pattern of fixture squares, corners, tees, and straight sections that would surface mount to the lower edges of the waffle form. This created a complex and random pattern that runs throughout the facility.
For the lighting design to work, the cast concrete square size needed to be matched up to fixture sizes which could breakdown into easily manufactured, handled, and installed sections to produce a joined continuous pattern providing lighting throughout the facility. We selected fixture model ES3254-D-S which was custom manufactured under our Build2Spec program into various shapes and sizes including mitered corner squares, corner ells, and linear segments of varying lengths to be assembled on-site into the final pattern. The 36″ waffle spacing presented engineering challenges with fixture sizes and shapes, LED board lengths and placement, and wire-management within the individual pieces, to ensure a fully contiguous final installation.
This project did not come without its challenges. During design we discovered discrepancies in the original building plans and walls that were installed after the fact. We coordinated with our area rep agency, Illumination Systems Arizona and the project’s Electrical Engineer (M3 Engineering), General Contractor (Llyod Construction), and Electrical Contractor (Stark Electric), to ensure that the overall pattern would fit the building despite the discrepancies found in the original building plans as well as walls that had been put up during a previous remodeling of the property.
To address these challenges our team performed field measurements of the property to determine that the ceiling waffle pattern did not deviate from the 36″ spacing despite what the drawings showed. We were also required to relocate fixture elements in the design to avoid intersecting walls not represented in the building plans. A small sample 36″ x 36″ section of the fixtures were produced to test the fit and installation in the building prior to the manufacturing of the fixture sections for the entire job.
The full fixture model used was ES3254-D-S-35K-550lm/ft painted PMC’s standard silver color and incorporated emergency lighting in various segments to provide emergency egress lighting throughout the facility.
Below is a representative sample of the sections this project was broken down into. There were (8) sections, (6) on the 1st floor of the building and (2) on the 2nd floor. In total there are 112 individual fixture pieces to be assembled on the project.
Eleven pages of drawings were finalized and approved, after multiple revisions, by all involved in late October 2021, and fixtures were subsequently engineered, manufactured, and shipped to the job site by the end of 2021.
