Light & Colour Provide Soothing Atmosphere At New Maternity Ward

Accounting for the largest surface area is the element “Earth”, covering the corridor, the waiting and staff areas, all examination rooms as well as a relaxation pool room. An elaborately hand-levelled golden ceiling points the way through the corridor to the central meeting point and the delivery rooms. Designers studiocandela from Herford were commissioned with the lighting design for the delivery ward in order to optimally complement the thoroughly researched colour and material concept in terms of lighting design and technology. So as to enhance the soothing atmosphere they predominantly opted for indirect illumination. In addition to this, light planners provided for brilliant zonal light accents for walls and especially floors using recessed ceiling Downlights with spot to medium-wide beam angle emission.

In the golden ceiling only fittings recessed as deeply as possible were used so as to achieve a high cut-off angle to reduce irritating contrast differences as a result of high luminances or, let alone, direct glare. This provided a pleasant visual setting for the architectural features, namely the elaborate ceiling design. With the aim of incorporating luminaires into the heterogeneous spatula-technique ceiling in “clusters” rather than grids – while at the same time achieving optimum colour rendering with LED technology – planners opted for luminaire manufacturer WILA, with its product family alphabet spectra as it sets a new benchmark with standard colour rendering of CRI > 98. This quality feature becomes especially evident in warm shades and in the red range, in particular.

Another hallmark of alphabet spectra luminaires is their consistent luminous colour – the luminaires arranged in groups needed to not have any perceivable colour differences. The deviation between alphabet spectra luminaires amounts to as little as 1×2-step MacAdams, which corresponds to a luminous colour variation of approx. +/- 50 K – a value invisible to the human eye. This quality feature is nearly stable over their entire lifecycle, because even after 5 years of permanent operation all luminaires were still within max. 1 – 3-step MacAdams ellipses. This high colorimetric locus stability of LEDs is unique on the market and guaranteed by WILA as a quality criterion for a 5-year period.

For the targeted illumination of elements on the wall directional spots were employed with half-spread beam angles of 20° and 40°. By combining 361° rotation with a 30° tilting range the spotlights remain flexible for future lighting tasks.

Another highlight is the mounting ring varnished in gold for the special edition and a glare-limiting cone in RAL 1036. This means the directional spotlights perfectly fit the ceiling look.

Unobtrusive ceiling integration is additionally ensured by WILA’s new f3 mounting system with as little as a 2 mm surface-mounting height and a flush reflector and mounting ring.

Project: Klinikum Gütersloh, New Maternity Ward, Germany
Architecture: HDR TMK Planungsgesellschaft mbH, Düsseldorf, Germany
Lighting Design: studiocandela Lichtplanung und Lichttechnik, Herford, Germany
Luminaires: alphabet spectra Recessed Adjustable Spotlights, special solution with mounting ring varnished in gold and anti-glare Cone
Photography: Joachim Grothus Fotografie, Herford, Germany