Flexible LITENET lighting management
Art Academy in modernised building soon

The Academy of the Arts in Berne, which is in process of conversion,will be equipped with a modern lighting management. The high flexibility of LITENET supports rolling wave planning and the expected dynamic utilisation.
Flexible LITENET lighting management
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Zumtobel
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 The Academy of the Arts in Berne is the first university that comprises all fields of study in design and the arts. Between 2005 and 2008, the Canton of Berne is converting a former textile factory into a main location of the academy, where in future some 400 students are going to get insights into research and other disciplines in direct contact and close proximity. Apart from the ancient fabric of the building, rolling wave planning - due to fundamental project alterations - and the fact that the building is to be moved into in stages have additionally complicated the project. Therefore, the primary goal was to implement high flexibility of area utilisation, also with respect to the distribution of energy and lighting control.
 
Accordingly, a lighting management system had to be found which covers almost all the available options already at the planning stage, even before the final room layout was determined. For this reason, the new LITENET system by Zumtobel was chosen and combined with the proven Tecton installation system. This enabled emergency lighting to be integrated at the same time. At the first stage, 1,640 individually addressable FL luminaires were installed, fitted with DALI ballasts and a Dimming on Demand function (DOD). If need arises later on, Zumtobel can release the luminaire for dimming by simply changing some software settings - a function which is already being used in various rooms during conversion of the building. This minimises the initial investment, while providing for functional upgrades without any changes of the installation.
 

Zumtobel
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 The luminaires were installated using the Tecton trunking system, which supplies the luminaires with mains power, emergency power and a control signal via the inserted trunking units, thus enabling highly efficient installation with individual linking-up of each luminaire. A central server now records any errors, such as "lamp defect", and ensures automatic control of the functions of these separate-battery emergency luminaires, so that in case of an emergency escape route lighting will reliably be guaranteed. Even non-engineers can adjust the functions via a common Internet browser using a software tool that can access the data stored on this server. This significantly reduces the maintenance budget with a change in life cycle, the standards used for communication - DALI and Ethernet - safeguarding the cost of investment.