Benny Chan/Fotoworks
The U-shaped floating stair features a concealed LED cove to evoke the idea of a car's racing stripes and nighttime striplighting on highways.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
The reception area is treated with a mirror-polish stainless finish and uses LED strips and concealed uplights and sidelights to illuminate the classic Corvette mounted on a slow-moving turntable above.
When Edmunds.com, a car-data company, first approached the design team, the company knew exactly what it was looking for: a sleek, open, contemporary workspace for its 600-person mobile workforce based at the company’s two-level, 133,000-square-foot Santa Monica, Calif., headquarters. The brief challenged the team to design a scheme for an inclusive, easy-to-maintain, energy-efficient workspace that enjoys a gentle bright interior.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
Capping the Corvettes is a ceiling circled by 4000K and 5700K backlit LED coves and accented by LED spotlights.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
The twisting slide is set off by a curved cove in contrast to the side light from the glass front of the conference rooms.
Lighting firm Architecture & Light met the challenge by implementing a scheme with multiple layers of light. To start, direct/indirect LED pendants provide 40 to 50 footcandles for the open office space. LED wall slots and downlights create an ambient lighting layer. A curved cove, fitted with LED lamps, serves as the illuminating “glue” that connects different spaces to one another and acts as a wayfinding device.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
The "stoplight red" conference rooms are illuminated by backlit ceilings, focused downlights, and washes at white boards, while outlined at the perimeter with covelighting.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
Throughout the space, concealed coves highlight vertical surfaces and create additional visual impact.
All of the luminaries, with the exception of a few specialty fixtures, use LED sources with a color temperature range of 3000K to 5700K, and with a CRI of 90-plus. Achieving a contrast ratio of less than 2:1 in the open workspaces and conference rooms not only enabled the project to achieve a glare-free design but also created a power density of just 0.72 watts per square foot, successfully surpassing the project’s energy goals.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
Collaborative work areas are illuminated using ambient coves to provide visual comfort.
Benny Chan/Fotoworks
Circular coves and direct/indirect pendants are used to define the break areas. Discreetly located downlights add a third layer of illumination.
Jury Comments
Lighting is integrated with the architecture. • Clear use of light to define public and private spaces.
Details
Project: Edmunds.com, Santa Monica, Calif. • Client: Edmunds.com • Architect: M + M Creative Studio, Las Vegas • Lighting Designer: Architecture & Light, San Francisco • Lighting Team Members: Darrell Hawthorne, Ling Li • Photographer: Benny Chan/Fotoworks • Project Size: 133,000 square feet • Project and Lighting Costs: Withheld • Watts per Square Foot: 0.72 • Code Compliance: Title 24 • Manufacturers: ACDC, Acuity Brands/Lithonia Lighting and Peerless, Axis Lighting, Bega, Beta-Calco, B-K Lighting, Cooledge, Delray, EcoSense, Edge Lighting, Flos, Fluxwerx, iGuzzini, Intense, LF Illumination, Lindsley Lighting, LiteLab, LED Linear, Lighting Services Inc, Lucifer, Lutron, Metalux, Soraa, Tech Lighting, Tom Dixon
