Team spotlight: Lighting
Lighting and the work of lighting team is pivotal to the conception, completion and overall success of a building project. The lighting team’s main aim is to create and lead innovative design strategies, support all CPW international engineers with training and offer our expertise to projects to ensure the most effective lighting design is developed, this would include for the sustainability of the design as well as the overall visual appeal.
In our latest team spotlight, Associate Lighting Principal Victoria Sadler discusses how our lighting team has lit up over the past few years and what’s next as the team continues to shine.
How has the lighting team grown over the years?
CPW’s lighting team was created 18 years ago. I was involved in several other areas of engineering when I joined CPW in 2012, much like the other co-founder of our lighting team, but growing our credibility in the lighting world was always a core aim.
Together with Director Neil Foster, we have grown the team and technical offering since then. We’ve seen significant team growth over the past three years especially, with our four-strong team largely based in Solihull.
With this team growth came an increase in our experience, capabilities and capacity. Whether supporting other teams within the business with existing projects or pitching and winning our own work directly, we specialise in design and strategy across daylight, internal and external lighting.
What’s the team ethos?
We’re driven by style, sustainability and user well-being. Therefore, we ensure that every design treats the embodiment of high-quality daylight and sustainable, low energy artificial light with the utmost importance.
The correct illumination is required to enable the intended tasks, whether functional or for entertainment, however lighting quality is more important than quantity to enhance the user experience, which is a key aspect of our ethos as a team.
What interesting projects are you working on at the moment?
The team are working on a number of diverse and different schemes at the minute, one of which is a headquarters building within Cheltenham that has both a new build office and the redevelopment of grade 2 listed building, which has allowed us to use a variety of different lighting styles from modern sleek office luminaires to more ornate period fixtures.
Our workload is shifting more towards refurbishment projects where clients are now engaged with decarbonisation schemes and are looking to upgrade all their lighting stock to LED now that fluorescent lighting is no longer maintainable, this gives us great opportunities to implement lighting schemes with a long term sustainable and circular economy approach.
Will the lighting team be expanding?
The team are always looking to expand and build but at a steady pace, to enable effective growth within the team. Alongside the growth of the team’s size, we are always expanding our knowledge, experience, capabilities and reputation for innovative lighting design.
The future requires joined up thinking of all architecture, building services and lighting design and our intention is to make sure we enhance that team approach.
What are the main changes taking place in lighting at the moment?
The lighting industry is going through some pretty seismic changes at present. The fluorescent lighting ban has come into effect meaning that all buildings that haven't already will need to upgrade to LED as their current lighting is not maintainable. This then ties into the low carbon climate we now live in, where the importance of using materials carefully is the top of people's agendas. When LED luminaires first entered the wider marketplace there was legitimate fear that creative lighting design styles could diminish. However constant development in optics, controls and colour efficiency have all added to an exciting opportunity for lighting design.
Luminaires are now being produced that are manufactured from recycled and recyclable materials and the circular economy and longevity of a luminaire is adding exciting new challenges within the industry.
To find out more about our lighting team and its capabilities, visit https://www.cpwp.com/daylight-lighting