Completed in November 2011, the Exhibition Road development is a £28m project to improve infrastructure and access to facilities within an area that is home to the world's leading arts, cultural, scientific and academic organisations

The project, designed by Dixon Jones Architects, turns Exhibition Road into one of the finest streetscapes in London. The brief was to provide the best possible environment for all users and residents of the area, including the 20 million tourists the road attracts each year. The design is a cutting edge, elegant, multifunctional shared space in which pedestrians and vehicles co-exist thanks to the removal of kerbs, pavements and other obstructions whilst installing Marshalls bespoke corduroy paving for demarcation of pedestrian areas for the visually impaired. This area is then enhanced greatly by the introduction of an integrated palette of lighting solutions. This is presented alongside the introduction of an integrated palette of lighting solutions.

This major route had become littered with street clutter and required a complete transformation to remove all unnecessary urban elements and combining the remainder of the street furniture, signage and lighting to bring a streamlined vista to the bustling cityscape.

Our work over the last decade supporting the regeneration of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, has been extended into Exhibition road, combining street furniture with lighting and signage for the least visual intrusion and clutter. Our work is complemented by the incorporation of 22,000 square metres of striking Natural Stone granite setts, banded in black and pink. These were supplied by Marshalls in a truly collaborative and integrated project.

In addition, Woodhouse has developed a new multi-function street lighting concept by applying our expertise and experience to create, engineer and manufacture a distinctive yet functional lighting solution. This concept was initially designed into the scheme architecturally by Dixon Jones and then detailed by highway, traffic & lighting consultancy, Project Centre.

Working closely with the client, landscape architect and lighting designer’s concepts the project demanded a completely bespoke and innovative lighting mast. A series of 20m tall masts were then meticulously engineered to provide aesthetic impact, elegance and the functional level of light for all users. Each mast features three recessed white-light lanterns providing the required level of uniform illumination efficiently to the road surface complemented by an array of white LEDs, clustered at low level and finally topped by a LED 'starlight' finial, both for decorative purposes.

The masts comprise of a rolled mild steel column with integral steel castings, the column is then galvanised and painted for a robust finish and to co-ordinate with the landscape of Exhibition Road.

Guy Harding, Lighting Development Manager at Woodhouse, worked with the design concepts to bring them to a practical reality. He comments: "These fixtures break new ground in exterior lighting. To accommodate the very latest light sources into such a sleek mast, with almost no protruding parts, and at the same time achieve the required statutory level of light on the road surface, was a huge challenge."

In the Architects words:

Sarah Rubinstein, Project Architect from Dixon Jones, added, "The lighting column is incredibly impressive looks amazing in the streetscape. Equally, I have found everyone at Woodhouse incredibly helpful, knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with throughout this project."

The result for the client:

Carol O'Riordan, Project Manager from Project Centre, said, "The mast looks fantastic, and it’s the perfect scale, performs incredibly and the design is very elegant despite its size and. It will suit the public realm very well."

External Links:

ExhibitionRoad.com

A World Class Streetscape