The team at Zano Controls tell us more about how its products helped a recent project in Greenwich, London.
Case study: lighting a loft fitness studio
Warm and bright, dim and cosy, soft and natural. Whatever ambience you’re after, LED lighting that can be dimmed to low levels and used to set a scene – depending on the atmosphere – is essential in a commercial space used for health and wellbeing classes.
Recently, the Zano team caught up with Katy Bartlett of Down to Earth Electrics, to find out how Zano’s market-leading grid dimmer, the ZGRIDLED+, achieved near-perfect LED lighting in a boutique meditation studio in Greenwich.
The project
The building manager of a restored former school building close to Greenwich’s Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum – now home to self-contained, office and commercial spaces – found themselves leasing out an upstairs studio to a meditation teacher and therapist.
Their prospective client wanted to turn a large, open loft space with an outdated lighting system and an abundance of natural light, into a boutique studio for meditative practices and sound therapy classes.
Brief
The studio lighting desperately needed a revamp, and the client had a very specific end-result in mind – they wanted the space to feel as though it was an escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, an environment for self-improvement and discovery, and deep relaxation. But with a limited budget, the building manager needed the project to be retrofit, without new switching or rewiring.
The client needed the upgraded lighting system to provide:
Low levels of dimming while maintaining the right amount of brightness
A customisable and adaptable solution
A relaxed ambience
Smooth dimming control
Flicker-free and silent dimming
While the building manager needed the solution to:
Be on a budget with a sensible price point
Provide optimal performance without compromising on quality
Tick all the boxes listed by the client within their specifications above
The solution
The LED lamps needed to be industrial yet decorative in style. But to provide such a specific ambience in the studio, they were required to hang from a frame attached to the ceiling, suspended by cord wiring. With a lamp manufacturer and LED range in mind, Katy needed a dimmer to cope with eight LEDs at 7.5W/VA each and a total load of just over 160W/VA.
Having used the ZGRIDLED range before, she knew it was ideal for retrofit projects, providing a fantastic user experience. When calculating the total load of the circuit, the ZGRIDLED+ became the solution. A 5-250W/VA LED grid dimmer, with the option of nine grid adapters (ideal, as a MK grid was being used) and the widest dimming range on the market.
Quick and easy install
With a tight turn around for project completion, Katy couldn’t afford to be called back to site at a later date to fix any unforeseen problems. So, she went ahead with a dimmer and a solution that she could trust.
Despite the lamps producing a slight flicker on start-up until Smart Settings were programmed, Katy was able to set the rotary controller’s lowest level and programme the dimmer to keep within a consistent range. What’s more, with built in ‘Learn and Adapt’ technology, the ZGRIDLED+ was able to take full advantage of the wattage range.
Seamless dimming: remarkable results
The project came together seamlessly, and the results were impressive…
The goal of the project was to upgrade the lighting system within a sensible budget to create uplifting, relaxing and fully customisable aesthetics for the soon-to-be meditation room, and the lighting solution that Katy installed achieved a seamless dimming range; that went from ‘normal’ to as close as possible to the minimal conditions needed for meditation, without any flicker and noise interference.
The building manager and their client were impressed with the results. The new lighting system complemented the transformed studio in its entirety and the meditation studio is now the perfect place to wind down and relax in the heart of Greenwich.
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