University of East London – Docklands Campus

Project Overview

Opened in 1999, the Docklands Campus is by far the largest
of the three sites operated by UEL. It was developed on
dis-used land at the Royal Albert Dock, overlooking London
City Airport across the Thames.
As it was constructed at the turn of the millennium,
much of the lighting was fluorescent T5 incorporated into
architectural linear luminaires, mounted to both trunking
and via chain suspension.
This aesthetic clearly emphasising the brutalist hard
surfaces of the building, whilst serving to draw the eye
to the fabric of the building in the eaves and open soffits
beyond the luminaires.
Lynx were engaged by Siemens to install a family of LED
products to unify the campus, whilst assuring fixings to
the various mounting requirements, e.g. multiple trunk and
busbar manufacturers, plus apparently recessed fittings
being secured by conduit drop suspension, rather than
laid into the tile.
As such, Lynx removed samples months ahead of the install
to design and modify standard LED luminaires and bracketry
to best assure compatibility with those removed.
An additional challenge was minimising glare as the remit was
direct one-for-one replacement of the T5 luminaires. As LED’s
commonly have flat ‘bright’ face apertures rather than crossblade Cat2 louvres, making UGR <19 much harder to achieve.