The Runnymede Borough Council building at Addlestone, to plans by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, is a new civic centre intended for various public purposes such as a library, the police station and the town hall council chamber. Set in the town centre amid other public buildings, the new complex aims to be a place in which the people can identify, embodying the democratic values of transparency, security and dependability.
The great glass curtain wall giving onto the street enables the passerby to look inside, as a kind of invitation to enter. A broad entrance hall, double height, ushers one into the library on one side, and a series of information desks occupy the other. The far wall is lined with IT workstations available to the public. Various small rooms may be used for more secluded meetings. A stairway leads to the first floor offices. Above it skylights in the shed roofing let in daylight. Halfway up these stairs a cafeteria juts over the entrance hall.
The building is planned for maximum sustainability: great store is set by lighting as a major way of saving energy and increasing user comfort. In all rooms natural lighting is backed up by Glashütte Limburg luminaires which combine high-tech performance with attention to design.
The café area is lit by suspended fluorescent lamps of 26W, 32W or 42W according to the varying room heights and the degree of lighting required. Crystal shades ringed by a satin finish band distribute the light softly and soothingly to the eye.
The second-floor council chamber has a curving rear wall and receives its light from the glass outer wall as well as from an oculus in the ceiling. The circular plan is picked out by an inset false ceiling encasing a series of spotlights. In the middle eight luminaires form a ring of light points. The lamps here give out diffuse light from their opal glass shades; the ends of these are open allowing a beam to shine upwards and downwards. A flat indirect reflector provides softly uniform light, though a pool of direct light falls on the workstations below.
GLASHÜTTE LIMBURG Glashüttenweg
D-65549 Laimburg
Tel. +49 6431 204-0
Fax +49 6431 204-103
E-mail:
[email protected]www.glashuette-limburg.de
