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Given the knowledge of the environmental impact of poor sustainability within the architectural process of new office buildings, the role of sustainable design has become ever more important in the design stage; and this is no exception for Bloomberg’s new European Headquarters.

The most widely used and well-established third-party evaluation scheme for office sustainability is the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). Little over one year ago when Bloomberg UK’s new European office opened, it had done so with an 98.5% score across all BREEAM credits; indicating that it may well be the “World’s most sustainable building”.

So how did Bloomberg’s European Headquarters become the greenest office building in the world? One word – innovation. Norman Foster’s design boasted the use of Smart Airflow, Water Conservation and a reduced-emissions Combined Heat & Power generation, which all factor into the final score. However, one inescapable design choice to notice when you walk into the building itself is the integrated ceiling panels.

The interior of Bloomberg’s HQ in London

The site, which is over 100,000m², incorporates over 500,000 LED luminaires, and uses 40 percent less energy than a typical fluorescent office lighting system. This impressive accomplishment is controlled by the DALI protocol.

DALI is an established open lighting control procedure, allowing complete digital control from 0-100% of lighting output level and giving comprehensive feedback on luminaire and control gear faults within the structure itself. Coupled with an intelligent lighting control system such as Simmtronic SPECS3, this is just the type of innovative design techniques used by Bloomberg UK to drastically reduce their energy consumption.

One such member of the SPECS3 collection that was utilised well by Bloomberg UK was a particularly localised presence control system. This consisted of over 200 presence detectors throughout the building, with each sensor only affecting the lighting panels for that contained area. This, of course, means that less populated areas of the building will not be lit, saving on energy expenses, but also has wider implications when we account for the role of BACnet.

The integration of the Lighting Control System with the Building Management System over BACnet was essential in creating a sustainable design. This means that other building systems can account for information gathered from Simmtronic devices to use their energy more efficiently. For example, a SPECS3 presence detector can give feedback to the heating and air conditioning system to stop unnecessarily controlling temperature within unpopulated areas of the office.

This is one example of the use of “Big Data”, whereby all information within the building is rooted back to a central system, and hence can be measured within the building control system itself. Simmtronic’s system adds to Bloomberg’s “Smart” building status by providing a secure, reliable and tested user interface that allows for detailed analysis of the lighting system’s usage.

Some additional energy saving measures of Bloomberg’s Lighting Control System include:

• An Astronomical Timeclock control for automated seasonal control of the façade feature lighting
• Utilising “cascaded presence” control along the corridor routes; whereby the Simmtronic system will only turn on lighting for the exit routes based on the area you have been working in.

There is no doubt that Lighting Controls have had a substantial effect in the impressive feats of Bloomberg HQ, and should be an inspiration for future office building design.

Interested in any of the Lighting Control features you’ve read about?

Contact sales@simmtronic.com, and have one of our Sales Engineers work with you directly.