Business Office with HCL Technology
The property wanted to have the most advanced control and lighting systems, to improve not only energy efficiency but also to achieve a healthy space that would improve the comfort and performance of workers and visitors.
CHALLENGE
- The main challenge was to achieve homogeneity in the spaces despite the differences in the incidence of natural lighting and solar thermal radiation. There is a single facade with 13 windows while in the interior offices there are no windows
- Height inside the Building: 5th Floor
- Dark office indoors with a low ceiling height
- The air conditioners generated a lot of noise
- Large temperature differences between the interior and exterior of the office
- Flexible jobs over time
- Multifunctional work group with large age differences.
OBJECTIVE
- Generate an optimal work environment: Flexible, comfortable and healthy.
- Being able to adapt the lighting conditions (intensity and color of light), exactly to the individual needs of each user, enhancing natural light.
- Environment that maximizes productivity
- Achieve maximum energy efficiency.
- Easy of managing audiovisual and control systems.
- Be a laboratory of best practices for future real estate developments.
- Avoid unpleasant flicker and make the light change imperceptible to users.
- Integrate different technologies and fields of knowledge to improve the environment and the health of its workers.
In lighting, one of the desired approaches was to make the most of the natural light from the outside and in some specific points give it a theatrical appearance such as paintings or representative walls.
One of the main needs was to remove the feeling of “cave” from the interior areas of the office.The aim was to have homogeneous lighting regardless of whether the user is on the side of the facade, where there is natural light from outside, or in the interior offices. Everyone in the office – workers, visitors, and customers – should feel at ease.
Solution: People-centered lighting
Within the range of options, we chose two technologies and a concept that gave us the possibility of meeting the proposed objectives.
HCL: Human Centric Lighting is a paradigm shift in lighting. It is a term that encompasses a philosophy of work with artificial and natural light since it understands that light in humans has a complex influence not only with their vital cycles of sleep-alert-relaxation, but also interacts with their cognitive capacity. Light has a direct impact on visual, biological and emotional factors, and HCL seeks to adapt artificial lighting to achieve better spaces for humans.
The idea of this HCL system is the union between technological solutions for artificial lighting, control systems and the knowledge of the improvement of human capacities, which allow, through lighting, to improve people’s environment as well as well-being and quality of life. inside and outside the project.
DALI: Digital Addressable Lighting Interface. DALI is an international standard defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in the IEC 62386 standard. It is a protocol created to control lighting systems
KNX: It is a standard (ISO / IEC 14543) of network communication protocol based on OSI, for smart buildings.
And in this project we took a step further from simple HCL lighting control. Not only was the improvement of the quality and well-being of people achieved through the provision of the most appropriate lighting: color temperature, intensity, natural light compensation, presence sensors, etc., but we also understood the different factors that affect the human being within a workspace.
Within the project we follow the parameters of the WELL certification:
- Visual lighting design: Sets light levels for basic visual performance, recognizing the balance of ambient lighting and tasks.
- Circadian lighting design: Focuses on the impact of melanopic (or non-visual) light and how the lighting meets the eye.
- Light glare control: Recognizes that excessive brightness can cause visual discomfort, leading to fatigue, visual impairment, and possible injury.
- Solar Glare Control: Offers solutions to control disruptive glare from sunlight through windows.
- Low brightness workstation design: Spatial orientation is considered to control excessive brightness at workstations.
- Color quality: Identifies the use of the Color Rendering Index (CRI) to ensure good color quality, compatibility with visual acuity, and accurate reproduction of color tones.
- Surface design. It sets parameters for the quality of reflection from surfaces, promoting higher reflectance values as a means of reducing energy.
- Dimming controls and shade control (shading) automatically. Automatic control of lighting systems and shading devices as a means of promoting visual comfort within the space.
- Light shaping: Recognizes the importance of adequate levels of natural light and establishes a minimum distance from windows for regularly occupied spaces
As the HCL control of the chosen brand, TRILUX, did not conform 100% to the requirements of the project, a WAGO system was incorporated, which is the one that sends the orders to the different luminaires of the project.
The true integration of all the components of the different manufacturers was sought, so that they interacted with each other and getting the best out of each of the implemented technologies.
We carried out important programming work in the field: new color temperature and light intensity curves were made, new parameters of general luminosity and the system’s behavior were managed in different scenarios, adapting it to the technologies implemented in this office.
ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING
In order to solve the project, we worked hand in hand with the Yosko Navarro architecture team and the Transversal6 lighting company, to start up the first HCL (Human Centric Lighting) system of the Trilux brand in Spain.
To achieve all the requirements, the specific lighting of the Trilux brand was chosen in order to contribute to improving the biorhythm and increasing the satisfaction of the office employees.
It is not just about regulating the luminaire, but also about controlling the color temperature throughout the day to adapt it to the natural cycle of the sun and the different uses of the space.
The Trilux brand allows the luminaire to be positioned centrally above the desk or work table without causing annoying glare by reflection on reflective surfaces such as workstations or the meeting room.
Additionally, luminaires that generated indirect light, variable color temperature (CCT) (2700 K – 6500 K) were required.
Flicker
The flicker, or strobe effect, is the rapid and repetitive variation in the levels of light intensity. It is normally produced by the variation in the mains voltage that is repeated at the output of the drivers 100 or 120 times per second (for frequencies of 50 and 60 Hz).
The importance of flickering depends on the frequency at which it repeats and the variation in light intensity. The less frequency and greater variation, the greater effect it has on living beings.
In LED lighting, it will depend on the driver we use. In this particular case, exhaustive tests were carried out with drivers from different manufacturers, until the one that achieved a ripple current of less than 1% was found.
NATURAL LIGHTING
We had to take advantage of the large windows that face the street and that not only provide light and solar radiation (heat), but we also had to respect the aesthetics of the building.
The objective, being an open office, was to have a homogeneity in the lighting, avoiding clear-dark.
Blinds were installed that were integrated into the lighting control system. The blinds move automatically according to the position of the sun. The system takes parameters such as the location of the building, size of the windows, location of the work tables, distance and height of nearby buildings, and determines a gradual automatic movement of the blinds, which go down and up according to the position and solar angle. .
Additionally, any of the users can switch to manual mode to adjust / move the blinds, for example for window cleaning. The blinds will remain in the “manual” state until the user returns to automatic mode, or at midnight when the system returns to its automatic state.
USER INTERFACES
The user interface for climate, blinds and lighting are Gira brand control keyboards.
All the control was adapted so that users could adjust the light at all times, but not only in intensity but also in color temperature, and thus in this way feel more comfortable in specific cases of presentations, meetings, etc.
Presence sensors, shadow sensors, geolocation, personalized keyboard control, flexible and wireless control through tablets or smartphones, remote control of the system.
ADITIONAL SYSTEMS
TEMPERATURE
A control of the Daikin VRV air conditioning system was installed, with which thermal decomposition of the different areas of the office is avoided. Not only thermal comfort was sought, but also high energy efficiency, low operating noise and high air recirculation.
Thanks to the GSM integration, the system turns on when the first person in the office approaches 100 m away from the office during working hours and thus when they arrive they are already at the optimum temperature level.
NOISE
Noise in offices and workplaces has been shown to have direct consequences on worker performance. The most immediate is the reduction of your concentration. Workers exposed to continuous noise in their workplace are less effective at their tasks.
Interventions were carried out in the facilities to acoustically isolate noise sources such as telecommunications racks and air conditioning machines.
In the main office, as well as in some meeting rooms, a high-fidelity audio Multiroom system was installed to create a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere, preventing the noise of an office (telephone, printers, meetings) from disturbing the tranquility of the installations.
ELECTROMAGNETIC CHARGES
To try to minimize the incidence of electromagnetic charges, all the elements that generate electromagnetic disturbances were centralized in a telecommunications rack, in a very ventilated closed space, allowing air circulation and the conservation of equipment when working at a maximum temperature of 25º .
SAFETY
An access control system was implemented that is integrated with the central system, in such a way that the people authorized to open the door from their computer see the person they want to open and from there they open it.
Similarly, if you are not at your workplace, you can view the person and open them from an app installed on your mobile.
MULTIMEDIA
Following the philosophy of the architectural requirements of keeping the meeting tables as clean as possible, and avoiding distractions when having a meeting, wireless multimedia transmission systems controllable from the users’ Ipad were installed.