Media City is the new city quarter of Manchester and the location of a major amenity lighting scheme by Sill UK. The creative hub at Salford Quays is set to be the new home for many involved in the digital industries.
Once again Sill has been specified for an iconic development that has cost over £650 million and is the home to the BBC, ITV, Coronation Street and The University of Salford meaning the area is making history for the media industry.
Some 330 of Sill’s 021 Mini Power Projectors with 140w cosmopolis lamps were the core technology to provide the amenity lighting to Media City, and are used in numerous ways demonstrating the flexibility of Sill and the creativity of the designers. Triple-head units fixed to a special extended control gear profile were either wall mounted to the multi-storey car park, or column-mounted for direct light. Pairs were column-mounted for indirect light via secondary reflectors.
Beautiful tapered columns topped by RGB LED finials supported five 021 projectors, with the capacity for ‘plug and play’ entertainment lighting as well. All 75 reflectors and 85 columns used were specially designed by Sill UK, including internal electrical distribution and isolation and where necessary infrastructure for CCTV cameras.
For another part of the project 30 of Sill’s 141 LED projectors, each with 36 LED lamps, were specified. These were for washing the facade of a 12 storey office block occupied by University of Salford Media Studies, retail outlets and offices.
Sill was delighted to be specified by Lighting Designers, Pinniger, to provide their luminaires and expertise to the Media City project. Nick Harrison, Lighting Designer at Pinniger commented, “Pinniger called upon Sill’s manufacturing expertise to help create something unique that would tie in with the site-wide colour change lighting. Sill manufactured bespoke tapered rolled conical columns crowned with colour changing finials that were paired with their 021 projectors. We have a good relationship with Sill Lighting as they consistently deliver specials to our exacting standards.”
Media City’s bespoke community also features one of the biggest HD studio developments in Europe, 400 apartments, a Holiday Inn and a brand new tram stop in the heart of a spectacular five-acre piazza. The idea of Media City was to develop a new vibrant and sustainable environment where people can live, work, study and visit.
Sill is renowned for its flexible and professional response to the wishes and needs of lighting designers and architects. Sill understands that just like Media City, every project is unique and requires a perfectly tailored light solution to really bring it to life.
All of the Sill projector types used on the scheme have Si12 corrosion resistant die-cast aluminium housings with large heat dissipating cooling fins. The reflectors are made of 99.98% pure aluminium, chemically polished and anodised with a UV filtering toughened safety glass sealed by a silicone gasket.
Designed for high power architectural accent and floodlighting, Sill’s 021 series compact projectors come in a choice of three symmetrical beam angles, ideal for lighting atria, columns, and all the features of contemporary building architecture. Sill’s 141 LED projectors are an ideal lighting tool to upgrade or redefine any landscape.
