Philips Lighting interplays light and water at Tower

Architectural lighting plays a central role in the way that people feel about their environment. Employed imaginatively light can be used to reinterpret everyday city objects and buildings, elevating them from the mundane to the poetic. This is none more so clearly illustrated than by the stunning lighting effect created at Liverpool's 150-year-old water tower. The imposing feature is now bathed in a blue halo of light instilling a sense of pride in the local community.

As council leader Mike Storey said: "In Liverpool we're blessed to have so much fantastic architecture all over the city that we can often take it for granted. Lighting can reinvigorate our buildings and transform their night time appearance. A lot of hard work has gone into illuminating so many buildings in Liverpool and I hope everyone agrees they make rewarding viewing."

A Community Funding Initiative from Enterprise Liverpool, the company responsible for highways and street lighting, has funded the lighting to the Everton Water Tower. Kevin Earle of Enterprise-Liverpool said, "Enterprise through the Liverpool Echo ran a competition for the people of Liverpool to choose buildings within Liverpool to be illuminated."

Operational since 1856, the water tower still performs a vital role in the city's water distribution system. However, now as well as being part of the established infrastructure it is also an architectural gem on the night time city scape.

The lighting scheme:

Philips Lighting's LEDline2 provided the ideal opportunity to open up exciting new possibilities in this outdoor lighting project. Around the upper elevations of the tower controlled washes of LEDline2 create soft blue planes of light providing definition and contrast within the internal sections of the structure.

As Clare Grimley of Atkins Odlin, architectural consultants for the scheme comments, "The beam control that LEDline2 offered us enabled us to generate precise blocks of light and colour to highlight form and structure. The richness and intensity of light is very impressive."

Aesthetics apart, the use of LED's can be a huge help in areas, which are difficult and costly to install and maintain. Fixtures such as bridges or high towers such as Everton make it therefore the ideal choice. With a long average lifetime of 50,000 hours the LEDline2 module provides an energy efficient solution in an ultra-compact light source. Additionally, LEDline2 is available in different lengths therefore installation can be tailored exactly to the architectural structure.

At the base of each of the 10 columns Philips Decoflood MVF616 luminaires were employed using SON - T lamps. This provided good uniform upward illumination of the façade. The wide beam reflector version was selected from Decoflood's comprehensive range, which has been designed specifically with the needs of the city lighting specifier in mind. Thus, the increasingly tough demands of urban lighting applications can all be met whilst still maintaining a cohesive and co-ordinated approach. In this way it is possible to unite the identity of the various parts of a city together whether lighting the old town, streets and squares or residential areas, monuments or historic buildings and statues.

All in all the use of Decoflood in combination with LEDline2 has given new lease of life to one of Liverpool's lesser-known architectural treasures.

The picture shows the Everton Tower in daylight, and as lit by Philips by night.

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