Lafayette-based LHC Group is a home health care company in the US. The expanding company had outgrown its 66,000 square-foot main headquarters, with an additional five or six locations scattered around the city. So, it approached the team at Chase Marshall Architects to design a consolidated campus for its growing team. The new facility would improve overall efficiency while helping to attract and retain new employees.
The 200,000 square-foot addition includes office spaces, conference centers, training facilities, a cafeteria, and a pharmacy. However, since this facility is an extension of the original building, architects were constrained by floor heights in many facets of the project. This created some unique challenges for lighting. A-Light architectural luminaires feature prominently.
One of the more striking rooms is the employee dining space. With a floating ceiling height of only 12-feet 9-inches, the goal was to make the room as tall as possible. Designers did not want to crowd the room with multiple light fixtures suspended from the ceiling or affixed to the wall. A-Light D5 recessed linear luminaires in custom rectangles provide a clean accent in the space.
"We were looking for a light fixture to make a statement in the cloud ceiling," says John L. "Jay" Chase, Jr., principal at Chase Marshall and managing principal, project architect, and project manager for the massive undertaking.
Custom D5 recessed rectangles had also been selected for the three-story atrium and stairwell. They, too, would have been similarly inserted into a cloud ceiling. However, as construction progressed, it was discovered that this dropped ceiling conflicted with one of the safety systems. Chase troubleshooted with the A-Light team to find a plan B. With the addition of mounting brackets, they were able to retrofit the recessed luminaires to create dramatic pendants suspended along the industrial ceiling.
D5 recessed fixtures are also used in office corridors throughout the building. The lines of light are a wayfinding cue as employees move through the building.
LHC Group's executive floor has rich wood paneling and stylish amenities. A-Light's D5 recessed luminaires figure prominently, providing lines of light in the dropped wood ceiling over reception. In addition to providing illumination to the waiting area, they also serve to define the executive space.
An adjacent corridor with high industrial ceilings required a different approach to lighting. Acoustic panels for sound absorption are interspersed with pendant lights that are consistent with the lighting design in other areas of the facility. However, the space did not benefit from overflow light from neighboring offices, as on other floors, resulting in a darker atmosphere.
A-Light’s Apex 3 linear pendants are used to enhance the illumination. Apex 3 uses a precise viewing cut-off angle and recessed cell-lens technology to maintain a minimal presence.
A-Light’s Apex luminaire also provides the primary illumination for the new high-tech training room. The space is equipped with cameras and audio equipment to enable presentations to be broadcast to every computer in the LHC network. However, with an acoustical ceiling of only 9 feet, it was clear that anything suspended would interfere with the AV. Minimizing glare was also a concern, as employees and guests in the room are often interacting with laptops and tablets.
Chase opted to use A-Light’s Apex 5 recessed luminaire. As with the Apex 3, its LED technology features a compact optical system to carefully control and channel the light source.
The lighting specifications were modified for the boardrooms and 'huddle rooms' to include Apex 5 recessed fixtures in the dropped ceilings.
All lighting is on daylight sensors and managed with an nLight AIR lighting controls system from Acuity Brands Lighting and Controls. This gives the LHC employees complete control of their lighting environments throughout the day.
