The Dogs Trust has recently opened a brand new rehoming Centre located just a couple of miles from Cardiff Bay. The charity’s 22nd rehoming centre has been devised with man’s best friend’s welfare at the forefront of its design including the LED lighting solutions supplied by Luceco. The £13.5m project has created a canine oasis with three buildings and landscaped outside space for up to 210 dogs. The electrical installation was carried out by Kendall Electrical Services located in Telford, alongside main contractors McPhillips (Wellington) Ltd.
The new extensive facilities include kennels, veterinary suite, grooming rooms, hydrotherapy and physiotherapy units, training and exercising halls as well as offices and amenity space for visitors to the centre. 78 light and airy “sleep & run” kennels with underfloor heating were lit with Platinum Mini Downlighters, a recessed luminaire offering an efficacy up to 117 Llm/cW, with a unique swing tab design for quick and easy installation into a 152mm cut-out. The die-cast aluminium body is designed to provide optimal thermal control and a choice of gloss or matt reflectors.
Platinum was also used for visitor spaces such as the Meet & Greet area, waiting room and Internal Play areas as well as Platinum Surface pendants in the main building. Providing the opportunity for creative lighting design using the same high specification luminaire where a recessed ceiling void is not available, Platinum Surface Mount can be used as a pendant with suspension wires or directly mounted onto a solid surface. Both the Platinum and Platinum Mini luminaries share the same enviable design features as well as a host of bezel and reflector options including IP65 lenses.
Many of the circulation areas were lit with linear recessed arrays of the Contour luminaire. The LED lighting system consists of connectable modules that can be surface mounted, suspended or recessed as at the Dogs Trust in Cardiff forming contemporary, decorative, and highly effective illumination. Contour has a full range of illuminated interconnecting modules as well as an integrated driver with quick electrical connectors for ease of installation, and offers over 100,000 hours operational life, making the luminaire ideal for environments with high working hours.
Offices and meeting rooms were lit with recessed 600 x 600 LuxPanel luminaires, with the linear Academy luminaire used for the Real Life Room, staff room and other administration spaces. Other luminaires from Luceco included linear Climate Extra, a robust LED IP65 rated luminaire offering an efficacy of 140 Llm/cW with increased performance for improved energy efficiency and was used in potentially wet areas such laundry, bath & groom suites, food prep areas, plant rooms and the training halls.
The outside space is designed to provide plenty of room for exercising and training the dogs as well as parking and amenity space for visitors to the centre. Guardian Pro flood lights were used for the exercise paddocks and runs and IP65 rated Atlas bulkheads were installed around the exterior of the building with Deco Bollards lighting landscaped gardens and pathways.
The perimeter roads and parking facilities were lit with Viva City Pro, a modular, slimline, performance LED street lantern offering a choice of optics. Manufactured from high pressure die-cast aluminium, it is IP66 and IK10 rated and has an LED efficacy of up to 141 Llm/W and can produce up to 24,000 luminaire lumens at 4000K with a CRI >70. The range offers 15W – 180W power options with 2,062–24,741 luminaire lumens respectively and an operational working life of 100,000 hours.
Viva-City Pro is at home in many amenity lighting applications such as urban environments and civic areas, car parks, streets and highways and offers a choice of optics with asymmetrical distribution. The optics include street and area options, as well as a 50° Flood Optic. 70° Street Optic was used on the internal roads with 70° Area Optic around the car park areas ensuring the light distribution pushed the illumination outward generating a rounded pattern with little light falling behind the luminaire mounting position. Mounting options include both 60mm post-top and side-entry and accessories include photocell and dimming options.
The Dogs Trust goes to huge lengths to help stray and abandoned dogs and rehabilitate those dogs in need of a little extra help, and the Cardiff Rehoming Centre will be no different. With dedicated Training and Behaviour Advisors, dogs of all shapes and sizes will be offered all the help they need to find a new home – creating many bright and well-lit Happy Dog Tales!
