Top Professional Lighting For Bristol Bears Top Professional Rugby Club

Zumtobel Group’s lighting brands Thorn and Zumtobel have supplied the illumination for the Bristol Bears new High Performance Centre at Abbots Leigh on the outskirts of Bristol. Working with electrical contractors David Fear Electrical, Thorn and Zumtobel have developed a scheme within a carefully set budget which allowed for a variety of luminaires to be used throughout the facility. The scheme also includes the exterior lighting with the aim of creating a world-class facility that enables Bristol Bears to recruit the game’s top talent and accommodate all of their teams on site.

Bristol Bears is one of England’s top professional rugby clubs and the new state-of-the-art Bears High Performance Centre at Abbots Leigh is their new base. The facilities include a two-storey steel-framed training pavilion containing a gym, a 4,000m² indoor training barn, changing rooms, a floodlit all-weather 4G pitch and two hybrid grass pitches, S&C and medical facilities plus office accommodation for the club’s staff.

Zumtobel’s SLOTLIGHT infinity recessed in silver illuminates the lower height ceiling area of the gym, creating an excellent, continuous flow of light with no shadows that complements the space. The SLOTLIGHT infinity linear product family offers nearly unlimited options, with freedom and flexibility of design across all architectural applications – in straight lines and even around corners. Unmatched, consistent light quality with virtually end-to-end illumination is available in one modular solution to fulfill every advanced lighting design requirement. Suspended SLOTLIGHT infinity in black finish illuminates the breakout areas, player’s analysis room, the canteen and the reception area. The DIMLITE multifunction energy saving lighting control system incorporating a series of practical functions such as dimming, a central ON/OFF function and lighting scenes, has also been installed within the players analysis room, canteen and break out areas.

LINCOR suspended luminaires in silver have created high visual comfort with superior direct/indirect illumination in the gym’s lower height ceiling area. As a continuous-row system, LINCOR is suspended directly from the connectors, reducing the number of visible suspension elements and facilitating the installation, which is made even easier by through-wiring. The downward LED lighting points are first homogenised in a primary mixing chamber, after which the light is directed to the task areas with perfect glare control.

For the gym’s double height ceiling area CRAFT IP65 rated, flicker-free, LED high bay luminaires have been installed. CRAFT is a compact, powerful and efficient high bay luminaire with a luminous flux of 25 000 lumens and an impressive luminaire efficacy of 135 lm/W. CRAFT also boasts a long lifetime of 50,000 hours, retaining 85% of its original performance thanks to lighting cones with square beam patterns. This means that fewer luminaires were required and investment costs were significantly reduced.

Zumtobel’s RESCLITE PRO, a small, energy-efficient LED spot with finely optimised optics, provides the emergency lighting for the gym and players breakout space. This emergency solution can be perfectly adapted to suit the requirements of different spatial environments and trusted to maintain maximum safety in a wide variety of applications.

Thorn’s Beta 2 luminaires illuminate the offices, treatment rooms, conditioning rooms, the medical office, consultation rooms, the kit manager’s office and the boot room as they cater for more demanding interior lighting tasks and offer a high protection rating of IP65. With its prismatic diffuser, Beta 2 is a flexible, efficient and long-lasting solution for the efficient lighting of working spaces.

Thorn’s suspended Equaline, a flexible, modular LED linear lighting system, has been utilised in the corridors to provide a continuous row of light with a bold and contemporary edge. Equaline’s homogenous appearance creates a high quality lit effect that increases visual comfort, whilst the optics deliver a unified glare rating (UGR) of < 19, for comfortable, compliant and high-quality illumination with a service life of 50,000 hours.

Thorn’s high performance Chalice downlights have provided a high efficacy of >100Llm/W for ultra-low energy consumption in the toilets, changing rooms, breakout areas and meeting rooms. The high performance optic and light mixing chamber have a uniform appearance which, combined with a unified glare ratio <19, CRI 80 and CRI 90, make Chalice the perfect for high quality lighting solution.

Zumtobel’s VIVO LED spotlights illuminate the player’s analysis room. VIVO is impressively efficient with luminaire efficiency levels of 50 to 88lm/W. VIVO LED out-performs frequently used conventional spotlight technologies and has a high luminous flux level of 900 to 4600 lumens with a service life of 50 000 hours at 70% luminous flux. Thorn’s Novaline luminaires, luminate the stairwells. Novaline is a circular luminaire that is suitable for wall or ceiling mounting. Available in lumen packages of 1250 - 3500 lumens, Novaline provides flexibility in lighting design and applications.

The IP66 rated Thorn’s Aquaforce Pro is taking moisture and dust-resistant lighting to a new level in the kitchen, plant rooms and storage areas. Aquaforce Pro has an efficacy of up to 141lm/W and wide range of lumen outputs of up to 8.000lm, making it a highly cost-effective solution.

The terrace, cupboards and cold store areas have been illuminated using Thorn’s new Katona surface mounted diffuser luminaire. Katona combines market-leading efficiency, ease of installation and powerful IP65 protection to provide an all-round problem solver for almost every lighting task. This cutting-edge luminaire is ideal for use in both interior and exterior applications and is rated IK10, resisting impacts of up to 20 joules.

Thorn’s D-CO LED exterior bollards illuminate the building’s surround, incorporating a 14W LED lamp with a semi-opal anti-UV polycarbonate diffuser to offer a symmetrical light distribution. The luminaire is suitable for flange mounting and has an aluminium grey powder coated casing.

Thorn’s new precision-designed LED bulkhead Piazza II LED also illuminate the exterior surround putting light exactly where it is needed. Piazza II offers optimal light distribution with a minimal upward light ratio of less than 2.5% (ULOR) and a 3 metre forward light throw with a wide spread to either side of the fitting, allowing wide spacing of up to 12 metres. Piazza II provides excellent lighting quality with a colour temperature of 4000K and a CRI of 80 so that colours remain unchanged. The lamps also have a lifetime of 60,000 hours, thus reducing maintenance.

Thorn’s R2L2 lanterns illuminate the driveway leading up to the building and the car parks. R2L2 is at the forefront of LED technology with extensive optical, lumen and light distribution choice for all road applications up to ME1. For precise light placement with no wasted light, R2L2's efficient (up to luminaire 100lm/W) R-PEC optic offers 11 types of light distribution.

Bristol Bears Rugby Club has placed a strong emphasis on sustainability to match the high-specification of the training facilities for the players. The new lighting solution will help minimise running costs and reduce the CO₂ emissions created by the building.

For more information on Zumtobel, see the website: https://z.lighting/en/zumtobel/