30 St Mary Axe London, UK

A Delmatic Dali system controls lighting throughout 30 St Mary Axe, and provides energy-efficient presence-related switching and daylight-linked dimming of office lighting, interactive control of core lighting, as well as Dali emergency light testing and monitoring.

The building, affectionately known as The Gherkin, is London’s first environmentally progressive tall building which minimises energy consumption by maximising natural ventilation and daylight penetration.

The striking curved lightwells draw fresh air through the building by convection, enabling natural ventilation cooling for almost half the year and reducing the requirement for air conditioning. The lightwells also allow daylight to penetrate deep into office areas enabling the level of artificial lighting to be significantly reduced.

To optimise energy-efficiency, multisensors throughout the office areas relate lighting to occupation of individual spaces and the level of daylight in each area: reducing lighting levels also reduces cooling loads further enhancing the greenness of the building.

The system provides comprehensive testing and monitoring of emergency lighting via the Dali network, initiates scheduled tests and logs the pass/fail characteristics of each emergency lamp and battery. The system also integrates with the disabled toilet call alarm system and displays alarm messages at the head-end PC and the security room alarm panel.

The system was procured in two parts and the base build shell-and-core system was seamlessly extended into office areas as part of the Swiss Re and tenant fit-outs to create a single, building-wide integrated system.

The complete lighting management network is managed and monitored through graphical software which details the active status of every lamp, while changes to switching and dimming arrangements are achieved through the drag-and-drop software.

In keeping with the energy-conscious principles of the original design, Delmatic work closely with the 30 St Mary Axe Management Company team to continually re-evaluate system configuration and fine-tune operating parameters to optimise lighting levels and ongoing energy efficiency.