Speirs + Major have received a coveted International Dark Skies Award from the International Dark-Sky Association for their work on London’s Olympic Park and Athlete’s Village. News of the award, which was announced at the end of last year, was embargoed pending the lifting of the restrictions on publicity.
The award was given for work carried out by Speirs + Major in their role as ‘Lighting Design Advisor to the Olympic Delivery Authority’. Their input directly resulted in helping to reduce lighting levels across the park and thereby limited light pollution and other impacts to the environment.
“A lighting strategy already existed when we were appointed to act as Lighting Design Advisor in early 2009’ said Director Mark Major. ‘Part of our brief was to see if we could further improve upon the lighting levels that had already been determined, particularly in the southern area of the park. We worked closely with Secured by Design, the Accessibility Group and Sustainability Group to see how this could be done. We based much of work on what we had already agreed through the lighting masterplan for the Olympic Athlete’s Village where we had proved that lighting levels could be much lower than originally anticipated by the brief – but without compromise to safety and security.”
“We agreed that the lighting levels to the whole park would be set to a single base standard of S1 which would be then temporarily raised to around CE1 during the Games only. This was still much higher than in the Olympic Athletes Village where we predominantly used standards such as S2 and S3. Given on-going security requirements however it was understandable that the authorities wished to keep things a little brighter in the main areas. Despite this we helped achieve a further reduction in energy and light pollution across the piece.”
Indeed, more than simply providing a set of lighting design guidelines, facilitation was at the heart of the Lighting Design Advisor role. Speirs + Major drew on their experience in understanding the wider social, contextual and branding issues to bring about key changes to the park-wide lighting. By example, Speirs + Major worked alongside architects Allies and Morrison to develop an additional layer of temporary lighting for the Games. This consisted of ten metre high multi-headed columns that would raise the lighting levels throughout the park during Games-time but leave them at lower levels for the Legacy.
Speirs + Major Masterplan During the Games
“The lighting to the principle routes and main southern concourse had already been designed by Sutton Vane Associates. We worked to address how the other large temporary concourse areas within the park would be illuminated for 2012 only – but in a manner that then allowed the scheme to easily be adapted as part of the Legacy Transformation.”
Other initiatives agreed as a result of Speirs + Major’s input included character work such as unifying the colour temperature across the park, implementation of a common procurement strategy leading to the final specification of the luminaires and pushing forward the overall control strategy.
In addressing the IDA Award Mark Major added:
“This award should be for the whole project. As Lighting Design Advisors we performed a specific role advising the ODA and LOCOG. This included addressing fundamental issues such as lighting standards, colour temperature, public art and the site-wide procurement of lighting equipment and control, coupled with working at a high level across all parties to ensure this was delivered with consideration to a wider strategic plan. Many other lighting designers were also involved in the success of the public realm. The primary areas were designed by Sutton Vane Associates as part of their work for the landscape design team Hargreaves/LDA, the bridges and loop roads were designed by ARUP, the stadium island concourse by Buro Happold and of course the Olympic Athlete’s Village by ourselves. It is a testament to the collaborative nature of the project that so many lighting designers worked together to make the experience of the public realm such a success.’
Speirs + Major Masterplan After the Games
The International Dark-Sky Association is the only non-profit organization fighting to preserve the night, working to protect wildlife, cut energy waste and stop light pollution.
