
Break Room	Office

Entrance

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Allegheny Power Customer Call Center

Building on my previous work on the award-winning AT&T AICS project, the Allegheny Power Customer Call Center was provided with quality lighting for the computer intensive work space. The Scope newsletter describes many benefits of an indirect lighting system.

The small cubicles and intense work conditions made the lighting critical to the success of their project. Direct/indirect lighting in the heavily computerized area required flexible task lighting for the complementary difficult paper tasks.

The indirect lighting system for the 130 operator open office environment provided a glare free environment which exceeds the requirements of the Illuminiating Engineering Society of North America's RP-1 (Recommended Practice for Office Lighting). As an added bonus, the rows of luminaires closest to the window wall were fitted with daylight sensors and dimming ballasts. The design provides for a constant uniform lighting level by dimming the luminaires based upon the available daylight. The estimated payback for the installation was under four years. This project was completed several years before the passage of federal energy legislation.

Ancillary areas such as break rooms, conference rooms and training rooms were also a vital part of the design of this facility. The employees required breaks for downtime. Relaxation areas with dimmable residential style lighting was provided.

The Illuminiating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) - Pittsburgh Chapter awarded Carlins Consutling the International Illumination Design Award (IIDA) for this project.