Lighting Up Overland Park’s Newest Office Tower
Exterior Lighting Design at Shamrock Trading Corporation’s East Campus
Seven glowing lines extend up around the eight-stories of Shamrock Trading Corporation’s new tower in the northeast corner of 95th and Metcalf creating a subtle, yet dramatic effect. The blade light design is a series of side-lit acrylic panels featuring color changing LEDs that can emit more than 16 million different colors by using DMX control protocol. Each fixture is also individually addressable, so the blades are capable of a dynamic light show. However, there is a lot more to the Shamrock exterior lighting design story.
Safety is Always at the Forefront
The entry driveways and parking lots feature LED area lights mounted to anodized aluminum tapered poles selected to be strong enough to withstand 110 MPH wind forces yet elegant enough to tie into the architectural aesthetics. These area lights are designed to provide just the right amount of horizontal and vertical illumination for safe driving, parking, and pedestrian passage while still reducing energy usage well below the current energy code requirements.
Minimize Impact on Surrounding Neighborhoods
The exterior light fixture selection and placement were also designed to minimize spill light to neighboring residential properties and to minimize impacts on night sky. For this reason, the main parking lot and driveway area lights have zero up light and feature house-side shields to block light that may otherwise spill outside the property line. Project costs were reduced by selecting 33’ tall poles (the tallest allowed by the Overland Park Municipal code) to allow increased pole spacing while still achieving the required illumination uniformity ratios.
The Walkways
Walkways adjacent to the building and around the site’s pond were illuminated by decorative round LED luminaires mounted to shorter 20’ tall poles to bring the illumination down to more of a pedestrian scale. These decorative pole heads feature a unique “spider mount” which adds to the visual appeal of the site.
As a person walks closer to enter the building, decorative side-lit illuminated bollards provide both protection from vehicle traffic and a subtle glow of vertical illumination. Additional vertical illumination is provided at these walkways by slim, four-inch by wide 4-foot tall, linear LED light fixtures featuring satin acrylic lenses with a half-inch metallic silver trim recess-mounted to the stone columns near each building entry. These vertical illumination elements light the faces of pedestrians with minimal shadows. This is both visually appealing and provides enhanced building security.
The Building “Eyebrow”
The top level of the building features round columns supporting a smooth curved roof structure known as the building “eyebrow”. Flood lights, concealed by the building façade, up light the eyebrow and columns accentuating the smooth curved surfaces and creating a dramatic play of shadows. The flood lights feature a swivel head with adjustable “bard door” glare shields to block spill light that would otherwise shine in to the 8th floor curtainwall glass and outward towards the night sky.
Are you need of lighting design for your next commercial project? Give us a call at (816) 358-1790 to discuss the details. You can also learn more about the Shamrock Trading Corporation – East Campus project here.
Written by:
Dan Oliva, PE
Electrical Engineer and Project Manager
