Nexus - The West-Coast Mainline Railway’s new Control Centre

We worked with the Ergonomists CCD on the lighting part of the Human Factors checks and designs for this crucial part of the West-coast Mainline upgrading project. At the heart of the project is the new Nexus building which will control all the signalling on the route. Within this is a huge 22m diameter room that will eventually house the signallers and route controllers for the whole of the West-coast Mainline from London to Scotland.

We carried out design checks on the lighting of the main control room as well as all other critical areas. We suggested ways to improve the lighting of a number of areas. We have been involved in trials in a mock-up room to devise a new task lighting system for the large curved control desks. These desks contain between six and nine flat-screen monitors and the task lighting of the desks is important to the safe & efficient operation of the system.

Local studies resources centre, Rochdale

The new information centre is part of the restored heritage centre in the heart of Rochdale. We designed the lighting to provide a high quality of light across the varied workspaces in the open area, on and under the mezzanine. The lighting was also designed to give a light and airy feel to the space.

Shop at The Walker, the National Gallery of the north

The new shop, shown left, is in an adaptable foyer space that needed to be usable for audio visual presentations, shop use or ticketing at almost any point in its complex volume. We designed an adaptable display lighting system that can be changed to suit the varying needs of the users.

St Monica Homes, Bristol

St Monica’s is a large nursing home in Bristol where a community of elderly people and their carers live and work. We were asked to carry out a survey of the existing lighting and to report on ways that the lighting and controls could be improved. This included the ambience, quality and running costs of the lighting.

Pendon Museum, near Abingdon

This was a most unusual project. The museum houses the largest model railway layout in Europe. It occupies the top floor of a purpose built building. The model has viewing platforms around most of three sides and is covered by an artificial sky. The sky material and the lighting system above it were getting old and more difficult to maintain. We were asked to look at ways of re-lighting the sky and to offer suggestions about the sky material itself and indeed the whole technique of providing such an artificial sky feel above the model’s landscape.