Animated LEDs in the lobby ceiling, a brilliantly colored mosaic wall, and color-changing light fixtures in the children’s patient rooms are just a few of the details that make the 8-story, 465,000-sq.-ft. Medical and Research Translation (MART) Building at Stony Brook Medicine and Stony Brook Children’s Hospital a welcoming, comfortable, and whimsical place for children to heal.
Winning a global LIT Award in healthcare lighting and an Illuminating Engineering Society Illumination Award of Merit in interior lighting for this project, New York-based Cline Bettridge Bernstein (CBB) Lighting Design delivered multiple notable features on a tight budget.
In lieu of a custom fixture in the main lobby leading to the auditorium, “we chose to have simple (Winona Lighting) glass pendants and (Bruck) metal pendants creating a cascading play of light and shadows at the center of the room, to fill in the oval ceiling pop-up,” explains CBB Principal Francesca Bettridge, FIES, IALD, LC. “In addition, (Gotham Lighting) recessed downlights with drop glass trims are located right next to the ceiling stepping detail, echoing the central elliptical opening.”
In the MART lobby, CBB worked with the architect Pelli Clarke & Partners to design a dynamic, water-themed ceiling. “Working within a limited budget, inexpensive, flexible LED fixtures are mounted to circular metal plates specifically to create rippling water patterns,” explains CBB Associate Principal Michael Hennes, MIES, LEED AP BD+C. “We went through multiple in-house mock-ups to determine the best LED color and worked within the limited dimensions between the fixtures and the ceiling to create the effect and pattern we wanted to achieve.”
The flexible linear LED fixtures are mounted at different heights within the plenum to further simulate a sense of depth and movement. The LEDs are programmed by an Acuity DMX control system to produce the animated lighting feature.
In the children’s lobby, visitors, staff, and passersby are treated to an elaborate curved mosaic feature wall with aquatic “bubbles.” To optimally illuminate the wall, CBB specified narrow beam lamps with linear spread lenses. A Starfire surface-mounted linear wall grazer with black baffles is placed between each LED PAR20 lamp.
“It is extremely important that this wall is highlighted without seeing fixture brightness, and this fixture did a great job,” reports CBB Senior Associate Nira Wattanachote, MIES, WELL AP.
Inside the children’s patient rooms is a wonderfully popular feature: a handheld remote with DMX programmed colors, enabling the children to select and change the color of the lighting. “It gives the children and their families a sense of being in control of their environment to a certain level,” explains Wattanachote. “These rooms are visible from outside, so it becomes part of night imagery and makes the building come alive every night.”
This article appeared in the March 2022 issue of Architectural SSL magazine.
