Conversions made easy: track for flexible light in offices

Downlights for track The best of both worlds

In many companies, once created rigid lighting grids often determine the office structure for a long time. Changes, for example when more space has to be made available to an expanding department, frequently require complex new installations in the ceiling. In response to changing lighting requirements, track with spotlights have long since established themselves in shops and museums. They can be removed without tools using an adapter, rearranged and reconnected. By uniting the lighting technology of downlights with the flexibility of track luminaires, highly flexible, standard-compliant office lighting on ceilings is now being created for the first time. The advantages of the new downlights for track are:

1. They achieve high visual comfort due to good glare control.

2. They provide sufficient illuminance at the office workplace due to high luminous flux.

3. Precise optics distribute the light very uniformly and pleasingly on the desktop.

4. Wide light distributions create high horizontal brightness and achieve good facial recognition in meetings via the cylindrical illuminance.

5. The wide light beam enables large luminaire spacing, which reduces the number of luminaires required and thus investment costs and operating overheads.

Track as the lighting infrastructure allows free positioning of luminaires. The luminaire layout can be changed or expanded at any time without needing to lay new cables. Both general lighting and zonal structuring are possible. A change between these two lighting concepts is also feasible. In addition to downlights for horizontal general lighting, other lighting tools can also be added: for example wallwashers create a bright room impression, spotlights accentuate objects and pendant luminaires highlight seating islands and desks. Using track, all lighting functions can be optimally combined within a single infrastructure - from concentrated individual work to creative teamwork and the presentation of work results. In terms of design, such rooms retain their spaciousness and are not further divided by vertical elements such as floorstanding uplights.

Four criteria for good office workplace lighting

Four aspects are particularly important for attractive workplace lighting: Sufficient horizontal illuminance, high cylindrical illuminance, good uniformity and very good glare control. Office workplaces should be uniformly illuminated with illuminance levels of 500lx and more to enable clearly seeing details on documents. The high uniformity reduces unnecessary adaptation of the eyes between light and dark zones in the working area. In addition to horizontal lighting, a high vertical lighting component at the workplace is also advantageous for good facial recognition. In order to facilitate pleasant communication between colleagues or conducting video conferences at the workplace, it is recommended to utilise the cylindrical illuminance at head height. A brightness of at least 150lx is required for this purpose. Excessive luminance in the luminaire can lead to glare, so that luminaires with good glare control are indispensable for avoiding direct glare. The UGR (Unified Glare Rating) procedure enables evaluation. The process evaluates the direct glare of a specific luminaire arrangement for a fixed workplace. Luminaire ranges designed for applications in offices offer lighting designers a high degree of freedom to mount downlights at their ideal positions in the track thanks to the good luminaire glare control.

The ideal luminaire arrangement for offices

When lighting office workplaces, visual comfort depends not only on glare-free luminaires but also on the arrangement of the luminaires. To avoid reflected glare, it is advisable to position the luminaires laterally above the office workstation rather than centrally. This minimises any reflected glare on keyboards, obliquely positioned screens and glossy documents. Selecting the right light distribution is just as important. Thanks to light projected via lenses, various beam characteristics are also available for track-mounted downlights:

Extra wide flood for general lighting:

With a beam angle of approximately 85°, extra wide flood light distribution enables large luminaire spacing. This reduces the number of luminaires and cuts investment costs. The wide light distribution is beneficial for the economical illumination of ancillary areas. Luminaires with extra wide flood in combination with UGR<19 also enable use in areas with conference tables or for video conferences.

Oval wide flood for the office workstation and conference table:

The oval wide flood light distribution was particularly designed for office workstations and conference tables. It is based on conventional linear lighting systems with fluorescent lamps. The beam angle of approximately 90°x55° enables the efficient illumination of long work tables and achieves a UGR of <19 in the 55° axis.

Wide flood as an all-rounder:

In offices, wide flood distribution of light can generally be used to achieve good visual comfort. With 60° light distribution and a UGR of <19 in all directions, this optic is predestined for all forms of office workstations, conference tables and reception desks. The alignment of the luminaire on the ceiling layout is irrelevant due to the circular light distribution.

Oval flood for circulation areas:

The oval flood light distribution with 90°x35° enables extremely large luminaire spacing and is thus the most cost-efficient type of lighting for circulation areas. In addition to general lighting in hallways and corridors, downlights with oval flood characteristic have also proved their worth for illuminating counters, tables and sideboards. These thus stand out as eye-catching objects in the room and serve to structure even large office areas.

The track represents a flexible infrastructure for downlights. In principle, it is advisable to align the track parallel to the facade in order to simply adjust the lighting to closer or further distances between the desks. A 1.8m distance between the tracks provides a good basis for achieving uniform general lighting in a room with a height of 2.8m. To further brighten the wall towards the inside of the building via wallwashing for example, a distance to the wall of one third of the room height is suitable for the track. The system of track and downlights thus creates infrastructures that are suitable for a wide range of furnishing concepts.