Integrated LED lighting solution for corporate headquarters
©Roland Halbe
The new dm corporate headquarters in Karlsruhe-Durlach is a modern working environment with a bright and friendly atmosphere for 1,800 employees. Stone slabs on the first floor, oak wood on the ceiling, discreet ambient lighting. With this project, the architects from Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei (LRO) in Stuttgart impressively demonstrate how an informal atmosphere can be created even in large office buildings. The floor plan of the building forms a fabric-like structure of intersecting wings that form a total of eight inner courtyards. Generously dimensioned staircases at the intersections connect the individual areas of the office building, which fits symbiotically into its surroundings in terms of urban development. This was recognized, among other things, with the Ernst Höger Award 2020. The interior areas of the building are largely indirectly illuminated to create the most harmonious overall visual impression possible for employees and visitors. The integrated lighting skilfully highlights the architectural features.
Staircase lighting integrated in handrails
©Roland Halbe
The lighting of the staircases of the dialogicum is provided by fully encapsulated LED light lines of the AQUALUC series, which was integrated into the handrails on both sides of the staircase. Since the in-feed points were already determined in the shell design and were too far apart for conventional 24 V technology, a solution with 48 V technology was configured. This allows significantly greater feed lengths to be achieved. In the case of the AQUALUC C:URVE WIDE light line with IP 67 protection used here, for example, an in-feed is only required every 14 meters. In addition to technical feasibility, haptics and visual appearance were also of particular importance. Therefore, a balanced ratio between performance and heat generation was taken into account when planning this individual solution. It was possible to find an optimal balance through thermal testing of the stainless steel handrails. In this way, it was possible to achieve the goals that, on the one hand, the stainless steel handrails do not heat up too much even when the luminaires are in continuous operation and, on the other hand, the staircases are homogeneously illuminated with the required luminous intensity of 100 lux with a visible color temperature of 3200 Kelvin. A total of around 1.2 kilometers of the fully encapsulated AQUALUC C:URVE WIDE LED light lines were configured for this project and produced in our Nuremberg facility.
©Roland Halbe
Indirect lighting in the offices
©Roland Halbe
Project-specific linear luminaires from Barthelme made of CATania 3030 LED profiles mounted in coving serve as basic lighting in the office. To achieve the highest possible light output, the linear luminaires were equipped with clear diffusers so that the LED strips inside are protected from dust without losing luminous intensity. Using a specially developed magnetic mount, the luminaires were aligned on the system ceiling so that the light grazes the ceiling at as flat an angle as possible and thus radiates as far as possible into the center of the room. LEDlight flex High Efficiency LED strips were used to meet the necessary lighting requirements. This family of LED strips from Barthelme achieves luminous fluxes of over 6,000 lm/W when required and has a very good efficiency of up to 176 lm/W at a color temperature of 4000 K.
©Roland Halbe
The new dm headquarters is a sustainable and modern office building that takes account of a hierarchy-free working environment. From the very beginning, the focus of this concept has been on durability and efforts to achieve good values in terms of life cycle costs and energy balance. The building's façade, made of a brick shell with used demolition bricks, makes an important contribution, while the decentralized ventilation system and efficient lighting make another. For their concept, the architects from Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei (LRO) were awarded the Ernst Höger Prize 2020 and the German Brick Award 2021.
Projektdaten
Client dm-drogerie markt GmbH + Co. KG, Karlsruhe Architecture Lederer Ragnarsdóttir OEI (LRO), Suttgart Electrical and lighting design GBI Gesellschaft Beratender Ingenieure mbH, Stuttgart Technical implementation Frank Bossert GmbH & Co.KG, Remseck Electrical installation Schlagenhauf GmbH, Ellwangen ©Photographer Roland Halbe, Stuttgart