External Lighting
When considering the external lighting the designer has the opportunity to not
only consider the functional requirements of external lighting but also to consider
the amenity aspects and the benefits that good exterior lighting can bring.
A similar approach should be taken to the way in which you would light parklands,
hotels and other outdoor leisure areas. Advantage should be taken to provide
landscape illumination where ever possible and to add a sense of drama to
interesting architecture sculptures or building structures. Entrances should also
be treated in the same way as you would for entrances to leisure centres or
retails outlets. Adopting these methods will help provide an attractive and
comfortable appearance to the entrance, grounds and surrounding areas for
everyone to appreciate and enjoy.
Exterior lighting should at the very least provide both pedestrians and vehicular
traffic with good guidance. In addition to the visual tasks it should also be
designed to provide pedestrians with a "psychologically safe" environment and
as far as possible provide a pleasing display to both buildings and landscaped
areas. Due to the large size of modern hospital complexes, many different types
of lighting are likely to be required. Colour rendering, installation efficacies and
maintenance issues must all be considered as well as the luminaire positioning
relative to each building. CCTV is now used in most areas so all camera positions
must be considered and coordinated with the lighting equipment.
All road lighting requirements are currently detailed in BS 5849 Part 1 (Guide to
General Principles), Part 2 (Code of practice for lighting for traffic routes) and
Part 4 (Code of practice for lighting for subsidiary roads and associated
pedestrian areas). The new European Standard BS EN 13201 Parts 1-4 (for
which BS 5489 is the implementation document) will supersede the above.
Its worth noting that hospital entrance and exit points will often connect with
major traffic routes and that the lighting should be graded, in order to avoid sharp contrast with the external roadway lighting. In the majority of cases, BS 5489
Part 2 -Category 2/2 or Part 3 - category 3/1 or 3/2 would be considered
satisfactory for most hospital roads (BS EN 13201 Class CE 3, CE 4 and CE 5 and
Class S1, S2 and S3 should also be referred to).
On any new installation it is advisable to seek the advice of the relevant Police
authority to ensure a "Safe by Design" policy is initiated early in the project. This
should include advice on CCTV together with the positioning and type of lighting
required e.g. luminaires should be positioned adjacent or close to any pay and
display machines. For smaller car parking areas, it may be possible to provide
illumination from the periphery and also from buildings in the immediate vicinity.
Larger areas will require columns to be located either centrally or on the
boundaries of the car parking area. The location of the columns should take into
consideration the car parking bays. Where columns are used, their height and
position relative to adjacent access roads must also be taken into account.
Access for maintenance
purpose should also be considered and wherever
possible the column height should be such as to allow on-site maintenance to be
carried out without the need for specialist access equipment.
Security lighting has to be an important integral element of the external lighting
design but particular attention should be paid to areas which pose a high security
risk around the hospital sites, particularly pharmaceutical storage areas (including
industrial gases), staff on-site accommodation and also switchgear/plant rooms
that house emergency generators. Particular attention should be given to these
areas to ensure that there is no area of darkness, which may encourage
unauthorised persons to gain access or linger in the area.
