D-Light: Wimpole Street Dental Clinic, London
The project included a new lighting scheme for the surgeries and public areas, including dynamic white elements to complement natural daylight and wireless lighting control system. One of the surgeries has Grade II listed interior, with period plaster ceiling and stained-glass window features.
Overall well-being of both patients and staff was at the forefront of our design considerations. In design development, we have collaborated closely with the owner Prof Christian Mehl, Dr Dejan Dragisic and the architect Jasmina Dragisic, who specialises in healthcare architecture.
Nearly all lighting is fully integrated within the building fabric and built-in joinery and concealed from view by utilizing existing architectural elements. If visible, light fittings were carefully selected to seamlessly bland into existing interiors with their soft curved forms and highlighting architectural features.
Central area of each surgery has a custom ellipse-shape system pendant, with up and down light, providing a highly controlled lit effect, whilst also being aesthetically appealing, in line with the elegant interiors. A ring consisting of 100mm curved modules can be seen as a subtle reference to beautifully proportioned healthy dental crowns.
Each 100mm module comprises four high-power LEDs with elliptical beam lenses providing down-light effect. Gold finish anodised anti-glare louvres provide excellent visual comfort, also providing soft warm glow, welcoming and calming. Every second module has a dynamic-white LEDs housed in the top, which provides a wash of light upwards onto the ceiling above.
A number of lighting scenes have been set up to suit various treatment types and stages during treatment. In addition, light levels of each pre-set scene can be adjusted manually without affecting the memory of the scene.
‘Daylight’ sequence of dynamic-white uplight luminaires complements natural daylight entering through windows. It is set via astronomical time clock and runs automatically in the background of all daytime scenes.
Warm/ cool white LED tunable luminaires are seamlessly changing colour temperature and light intensity at pre-set times, depending on time of day (from warm at sunrise, towards cool at midday, then back to neutral in early afternoon and warm again in the evening). This enhances natural daylight cycle in harmony with human innate biological time clock.
