MMA Lighting Design Projects

Our Projects

Bracknell Railway Station - Bracknell Forest Council/South West Trains

MMA Lighting Consultancy were commissioned by Bracknell Forest Council to design a new street lighting system for Bracknell Railway Station's private forecourt, 'drop off' zone and parking areas. The lighting design was carried out on behalf of South West Trains. As the area's to be designed were 'private' areas (i.e. not to be adopted by Bracknell Forest Council) South West Trains requested that we use their specific 'South West Trains Facilities Design Guide' which outlined some of the specification requirements for the scheme.

The Facilities Design Guide specified the required lamp source and the preferred luminaire manufacturer, these were to be the Philips 'Iridium' luminaire with a CosmoPolis lamp. The design document also made reference to a figure of '30 Lux' as the area lighting level required for 'Surface Car Parks - General - Major Station'. The figure for the purpose of the design was taken as the minimum maintained average horizontal illuminance required measured in Lux. We were also informed by the client that a 5 Lux minimum maintained horizontal illuminance was required across the area. Within the document there was no reference made to the overall level of uniformity (Uo) that was required for this type of area. Using our past experience of designing car parks we produced the design based on an overall uniformity value of 0.40 Uo. By specifying this figure we aimed to give the car park a good visual night time appearance making the public feel safe which is exactly what the design document referred to. This uniformity figure would also allow for the effective use of CCTV in the car park area if in the future it was required.

In order to further enhance the proposed street lighting improvements and taking into account the sensitivity of the area in relation to the trains coming in and out of the station, we applied the following factors to ensure we produced the correct design solution for the specific areas:-

The proposed lighting design was submitted using ten new 60w Cosmopolis Philips 'Iridium' luminaires. The proposed luminaires were to be installed at Six metres in height, with the two centre columns (NC7 and NC8) having two luminaires on each column mounted on a twin armed bracket. The lighting columns were proposed as flange mounted as per the client's request. All of the proposed lighting columns were to have a private SWA (Steel Wire Armoured) supply, so electrical cable calculations were carried out and cable schematic drawings were submitted with the design pack.

The scheme installation was carried out by Balfour Beatty who are the term maintenance contractor in Bracknell. The installation of the lighting scheme was seamless and the South West Trains were very pleased with the outcome of the design.

Bracknell Railway Station Photograph Bracknell Railway Station Drawing

Bracknell Station - Drawing example

Hyde Park, North Carriage Drive, Westminster - Balfour Beatty/Royal Parks/Camden Consultants

MMA Lighting Consultancy were commissioned by Balfour Beatty to carry out a street lighting improvements scheme on North Carriage Drive located at the northern section of Hyde Park in the City of Westminster. The scheme basically involved replacing the age expired existing street lighting that had not only reached the end of its life cycle but did not meet the current BS 5489-1:2003 and BS EN 13201-2:2003 lighting standard recommendations. Whilst carrying out the design of the street lighting improvements, we were also tasked with carry out a full review of all the exiting signage and where possible co-locate signs onto new street lighting columns to reduce street clutter.

The main challenge for this particular scheme was the electrical supply to each of the lighting columns. As there were no DNO LV mains cables on either side of North Carriage Drive the scheme had to be privately fed from a feeder pillar at each end of the road. This presented the biggest challenge as there are a number of protected tree's along the drive, so it meant tree roots were encroaching from the rear of the path out to the kerb edge on the Northern footway. The same applied with the southern section of the road, where there is no footpath, but the trees line the road and roots reach the kerb edge.

In order to minimise disruption to the tree roots on the southern section of road, we decided to adopt a single sided lamp column arrangement for the design. This solution came with the advantage that all the cable would run along one side of the road with no road crossings needed to supply columns on the southern section of the road. The single sided arrangement also carried an overall cost saving against a staggered arrangement of lighting columns as less excavating, cable, ducting, trenching and reinstatement would be required.

Having decided on the most appropriate lamp column arrangement an initial lighting design was produced and a site meeting was arranged with the client - Royal Parks. At this meeting, it was decided that the arrangement was suitable, it was also concluded that the best location for the electrical supply cable would be five hundred millimetres offset from the kerb edge in the southern section of footway - this presented the best solution for avoiding the tree roots. Various sections of the footway were then marked up for hand digging to avoid damaging the tree roots and the remaining sections of footway were to be excavated in the conventional manner.

Over the course of the next three to four weeks the installation works were carried out and the street lighting improvements were successfully completed. The final detailed design solution gave the Royal Parks a compliant street lighting installation that had no impact on the beautiful surrounding trees.

Hyde Park London Photograph Hyde Park London Drawing

North Carriage Drive - Drawing example