McEwan Hall University, Edinburgh

Project description
McEwan Hall is the graduation hall of the University of Edinburgh in the Scottish capital Edinburgh. It was donated to the university in 1897 by the famous brewmaster and politician William McEwan. It was extensively renovated in 2015. The aim was to restore the historic landmark as a functional university building that could fulfil modern needs. The restoration work, which was carried out by BuroHappold Engineering in collaboration with LDN Architects, was completed at the end of 2017. One of the challenges was to establish sustainable principles for the listed building in order to achieve BREEAM certification. "We wanted to develop a lighting strategy for the whole building that was both practical to use and dramatically emphasised the beauty of McEwan Hall." BuroHappold Engineering For heritage reasons, many ceilings could not be used for anchoring or cabling lighting fixtures. The fittings were to be installed as unobtrusively as possible. The only option was to mount the round H80 profile Pendant luminaires in the centre. The weights were carefully checked and a self-stabilising wire suspension system was integrated into the 1.2 metre circular H80 profile. Each fitting was delivered to site pre-wired in a wooden crate with wiring loom, suspension wires and lighting elements to reduce installation time for the contractor. The architect opted for a RAL 7024 textured finish, which is resistant to fingerprints and harmonises with the architecture of the building. Four wide beam warm white indirect light modules (Indirect Unit Dot*) with 3000 Kelvin and 1700 lumens, controlled separately via DALI, were modelled by Happold Lighting based on the photometric data provided by Spectral. Six aluminium cylinder** LED downlight modules with 2000 lumens and precise glare-free optics were used, also in a separate circuit with Dali control.

Ort
Edinburgh, Great Britain

Year of construction
2018

Subject area
Education & Culture