OREANDA-NEWS. The 2014 GE Edison Award is presented to Claudio Ramos, Hiram Banks, Erin Sudderth and Matt Landl of BANKS|RAMOS Architectural Lighting Design for lighting Square Inc. Headquarters in San Francisco, California, USA. The project also received an Award for Environmental Design, reflecting exemplary energy efficiency and environmentally sensitive design. This is the third time since this award was first instituted in the 2002 competition that this has occurred. A personalized Steuben crystal award for the winner of this 32nd annual lighting design competition was presented by GE Lighting on May 4, 2015, in New York, New York.

The new headquarters for Square Inc., a mobile payments startup company, is designed to be open and collaborative. With 175,000 square feet of useable space that spans the length of an entire city block, the design team’s challenge was to make the space feel hospitable while accommodating future growth and expansion. The goal was to create an office interior that echoes the company’s values of modern and functional design.  Lighting plays an important role in establishing way-finding, defining “communities” within the space, and providing the feeling of daylight throughout the floor plate.

By using a variety of high-performance fluorescent and LED solutions, BANKS|RAMOS was able to reduce lamp quantity and energy usage. General lighting throughout the open-office area and team rooms is provided by GE 21-watt and 28-watt T5 fluorescent lamps. Custom linear suspended pendants with dimmable LEDs create an elegant cadence down the main building corridor, and continue through floating wood ceiling slats which also conceal GE 7-watt LED MR16 lamps that illuminate art and signage.  An upper level dining area, commercial kitchen and servery are illuminated with 12-foot dimmable T5 fluorescent pendants and continuous LED track lighting, again detailed within a floating wood ceiling.

Daylight harvesting reduces electric lighting consumption to 65 percent in open office areas during bright daytimes. The lighting power density is 0.64 watts per square foot, 29 percent below ASHRAE 90.1 throughout the entire project to ensure LEED Gold® certification.

“The Square Inc. Headquarters project proves that elegant, modern lighting doesn’t need to mean high energy and maintenance costs,” said Mary Beth Gotti, Manager, GE Lighting & Electrical Institute. “Smart lighting design helps to achieve an ambience that is inspiring yet inviting, and also means the office will remain an environmentally friendly space, even as the company grows.”

A panel of five judges selected this year’s winning entry for its superiority in the following categories: functional excellence; architectural compatibility; effective use of state-of-the-art lighting products and techniques; appropriate color, form and texture revelation; energy effectiveness; and cost effectiveness.

Judges for the 32nd annual competition were:

  • Gilberto Franco, IALD, AsBAI, MIES, Franco Associados Lighting Design, Sao Paulo, Brazil
  • Jeff Kinstler, MIES, GE Lighting Specification Engineer – East, New York, NY USA
  • Sean O’Connor, IALD, MIES, Sean O’Connor Lighting, Los Angeles, CA USA
  • Robert Shook, FIALD, LC, Schuler Shook Lighting Designers, Chicago, IL USA

The winning project was one of three Awards of Excellence finalists. The other Awards of Excellence winners were:

  • LWL–Museum of Art and Culture in Muenster  (Munster, Germany) designed by Andreas Schulz, Martina Weiss and Laura Sudbrock, Licht Kunst Licht AG (Bonn, Germany).  Acknowledgements: Staab Architekten GmbH (Berlin, Germany); Exhibition designer SPACE4 GmbH (Stuttgart, Germany) along with LDE Belzner Holmes (Stuttgart, Germany).
  • St. Louis Art Museum East Building (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) designed by Andy Sedgewick, Andrew McNeil and Chris Rush, Arup (London, UK/San Francisco, CA/New York, NY). Acknowledgements: Sir David Chipperfield, Franz Borho, Julie Bauer and Silke Hoss,  David Chipperfield Architects (London, UK); Roger McFarland, Eric Hoffman, and Nicole Crabiel, HOK (St. Louis, MO, USA); and Steve Andert, William Tao & Associates (St. Louis, MO, USA).

Also presented at the GE Edison Awards ceremony were five Awards of Merit, one Special Citation for Creative Lighting Effects.