Design consultancy AECOM has received an Award of Commendation for the lighting design of the QVB main access stairs in Sydney at the 2009 NSW IES Lighting Awards. 

AECOM associate director, Timothy Shotbolt, said it was a privilege to win the prestigious design award as it highlights the importance of lighting design within the retail industry.

“The lighting designers at AECOM are thrilled to receive this award. It is a great achievement for our QVB access stairs lighting design to be recognised amongst the most outstanding lighting designs in the state,” said Shotbolt.

Shotbolt and the design team at AECOM faced many challenges when designing the lighting for the QVB access stairs.

“The heritage quality of the QVB gave the project lots of character to work with but also posed several challenges. For example, the heritage architecture of the QVB did not allow any chasing of the walls or surface conduits.

"The masonry walls are too thick to drill through, the stair treads are heritage stone and dark in colour and could not be altered in any way to make them more visible,” said Shotbolt of the difficulties.

"The central core of the QVB is a large and complex space with limited access for electrical supply, particularly at the second floor level. This level was the most difficult location to light and minimise glare due to the limitations on lighting location and cable access."

To address this challenge, spot lamps with sculpture lens are focussed from both sides onto the landing and the first flight of stairs.

The lamp types were chosen to ensure the richness of colours in the retail centre was enhanced and at the same time minimised maintenance. The existing cast metal wall bracket light fittings with twin opal spheres were redesigned and recycled into clear glass modern interpretations of the original gas lanterns.

AECOM’s design philosophy was to have a few additional lamps with overlapping light distributions so that if any one lamp was not replaced promptly there would not be a large dark spot and potential OH&S issues immediately on the QVB stairs.

The energy consumption of the new QVB lighting design is less than the original while also achieving a superior lighting result.

The IES Lighting Awards program is not a competition, with each project/entry being adjudicated on its own merits. Two levels of awards are possible, Award of Excellence or Award of Commendation.