Making an icon, iconic
Client
Durham County Council
Project location
Durham, United Kingdom
Project date
2022
Photography
Graeme Peacock
LIGHTING THE 'BEST CATHEDRAL ON PLANET EARTH'
Described as the 'best cathedral on Planet Earth' by author Bill Bryson, Durham Cathedral was built in 1093 to house the Shrine of St Cuthbert and The Venerable Bede.
Renowned for its magnificent Romanesque architecture and the spectacular location at the heart of the Durham World Heritage Site, pivotal scenes for the first two Harry Potter movies were filmed throughout the cathedral. Alongside regular museum tours, it has been a place of pilgrimage for over a thousand years, with daily worship for more than 900 years.
Thorn Lighting, a leading manufacturer of innovative, performance-driven, and dependable indoor and outdoor lighting and controls solutions, worked with Durham County Council and Durham Cathedral to replace the site's current external lighting system.
CONTRAST FLOODLIGHT
Bring out the best of the urban environment
From super-compact spotlights to powerful floodlights, Thorn’s Contrast is a single, unified series of architectural luminaires that meet the needs of different applications including Durham Cathedral. A wide variety of beams, colour temperatures and optical accessories makes Contrast highly versatile. A range of mounting options including column mounting increases its flexibility. This enables users to create high-impact designs and displays.
TIME FOR A REFRESH
Maya Polenz, chief officer: property at Durham Cathedral, explains: "While the current system was installed only ten years ago, it was in much need of a refresh due to as the lights kept failing’.”
As a local business, Thorn lighting has an excellent working partnership with Durham County Council and currently provides luminaires for street lighting projects as a one-stop-shop lighting contract. The Council wanted to replace the current lighting with a new scheme that could offer them integrated RGBW, resulting in a reduction in maintenance callouts.
Previously they had to attend the site to manually install colour gels to each fitting every time they wanted to represent a charity day or a special event. This was a labour-intensive requirement, and as such the new system makes it much easier as it enables you to facilitate light colour changes and control at the touch of a button.
OVERCOMING PROJECT CHALLENGES
The project team worked carefully to develop a new lighting scheme that would be more efficient and reduce carbon emissions by employing the latest LED technology.
“Working with a Cathedral presents challenges with regards to installation” Sam Berry Thorn Lighting's Head of Outdoor Sales - UK & Ireland, details, "We had to work with the existing lighting design so as not to cause any issues with Heritage England. Also, the Cathedral has archaeological responsibilities on site that must be adhered to. So, we kept the existing positions, replacing the fittings and providing new bracketry."
The high-quality creative scheme has been developed using Thorn's Contrast, energy efficient floodlights, and state-of-the-art control system.
The Contrast family offers a distinctive, long-lasting modern design, ideal for sympathetically lighting historic architecture. It’s main benefit for Durham Cathedral is its RGBW option with wireless DMX and RDM (Remote Device Management). Cathedral staff can now change the colour remotely to mark certain ceremonies and events throughout the year, such as Remembrance Day.
"This new system will once again showcase the Cathedral in all its glory, as an icon of worship, history and heritage on Durham's landscape.
We are grateful to Durham County Council for the investment, which will enable a reduction in our carbon footprint whilst enabling the building to be fully illuminated again. It will also allow the Cathedral and the wider county to mark moments of national significance."
Maya Polenz, Chief Property Officer, Durham Cathedral
PRECISE, BALANCED AND EFFICIENT
For the lighting of the central tower, four high output floods with sixteen low output narrow beam Contrast luminaires have been installed. This provided a precise beam control focussed directly onto the tower helping to minimise stray light. All wide beam floods were replaced with either narrow or medium beam optics to provide greater control and intensity of the Cathedral’s architectural features.
The optical control is especially important on projects where RGBW is used to minimise overlap of beams where the purpose is to accentuate features of the building. For the Cathedral, medium beams were used on the walls and 10 x 40 elliptical beams to project light up, supporting the buttresses and increasing the definition and contrast of these features.
By using sophisticated 3D modelling software Thorn were able to check all the intensities to provide a balanced lighting scheme. Furthermore, the floodlighting is very energy efficient with an efficacy of up to 100 lm/W.
Cllr John Shuttleworth, Durham County Council's Cabinet member for rural communities and highways, comments: "A project like this has to be carefully managed and sympathetic to such a magnificent structure. It is a beacon across the world and a vitally important part of our culture, which plays a central part in our bid to be named UK City of Culture 2025. The new lighting will allow people to appreciate the Cathedral at night with a new perspective, while it also enhances the current structure and ensures the lights will be kept on for years to come."