Pandon Court is a 15-storey high-rise residential building in Newcastle upon Tyne, owned by Newcastle City Council and run by Your Homes Newcastle. With thousands of homes located across Newcastle, Your Homes Newcastle (YHN) is one of the largest property management organisations in the region, providing high quality homes and supported living schemes, together with person-centred customer support services.

It is an Arm’s Length Management Organisation (ALMO) founded in 2004 to manage council homes, leasehold properties and a range of support services on behalf of Newcastle City Council. Your Homes Newcastle says it places its customers and communities at the heart of everything that it does. As a result, it believes that everyone has the right to a safe, affordable home. It continually reinvests its money back into its homes, services and communities.

Pandon Court is one of the largest in the housing portfolio and having been built in 1966, Your Homes Newcastle wanted to refurbish it to create a more modern, efficient building.

Being a long-standing customer of Newcastle City Council, Dextra designed and supplied all lighting for the project.

THE SOLUTION

One key challenge on this project was to find an indirect lighting solution that would fit the ceiling apertures and provide a warm and welcoming feature point. To achieve this Dextra’s AluLED was specified for use on every floor, meaning 254 were installed in total. These were arranged as two squares per floor over the 14 floors as well as two further rectangles on the ground floor.

ALuLED is a compact and reliable solution to indirect lighting. Its size and simple installation makes AluLED ideal for mounting in tight shadow gaps and under lips. Also, AluLED negates the need for cutting, sticking and soldering that other indirect lighting may require. Available in both 3000k and 4000k colour temperatures, AluLED is extremely versatile, quick and efficient to install.

Also used in the building was the Amenity Plus Metal Circular. This luminaire is available in lumen outputs ranging from 1500 to 3000 and is manufactured with a high pressure die cast aluminium housing with an injection moulded polycarbonate diffuser for improved strength and durability and can be offered with a range of dimming types, integral lithium emergency and black or white housings. The Amenity Plus range is sealed to IP65 allowing for use in external areas such as under canopies or external wall mounting, however is equally suited to a range of internal applications such as corridors, stairways, toilets and storage areas.

The Amenity Plus range includes premium mid power LEDs offering excellent efficiency and longevity with a lifetime of L90 at 60,000 operating hours. Energy savings can be further enhanced with a selection of integral presence detection and bright out microwave sensors including on/off, bi level dimming and wireless variants allowing luminaires to be grouped for simultaneous operation.

Elsewhere, the BTEC Secure was also installed to provide a safe and secure solution. The BTEC Secure has been tested and certified to comply with the requirements of the Department of Health Environmental Design Guide, Adult Medium Secure Services, which can also be used in secure applications where care must be taken to ensure that vulnerable patients are at minimal risk of harm.

Whilst safety and security are of the utmost concern, creating a pleasant environment for patients to aid recovery is also key with any luminaire designed for mental health applications. The BTEC Secure is available in a range of lumen outputs and dimming variants ensuring that rooms can be lit to the required levels, as well as offering optional integral lithium emergency control gear when needed.

TextWith a milled aluminium bezel, which is available in white as well, and 2mm thick polycarbonate diffuser, the BTEC Secure has been specifically designed to withstand sustained attack from a wide range of implements. When installed with anti-pick mastic to seal the luminaire to the mounting surface the BTEC Secure complies with ligature resistant requirements and is also rated to IP65 and IK10.

Also used on the project was the OEZ2 LED, which is a surface mounted emergency luminaire that is available with a range of hanging blades and adhesive legends. The OEZ2 LED is manufactured with an IP65 polycarbonate housing and reeded diffuser and is available in self-test, autotest and basic emergency variants. The basic emergency variant is supplied as a maintained emergency as standard but can be converted to non-maintained where needed by removal of an internal link wire. With rear and side cable entry points the OEZ2 is suitable for a wide range of installation methods.