L&L Luce&Light, an Italian company that specialises in the production of LED lighting fixtures, has provided the lighting in the outdoor areas of the Casa sul Parco (literally the house on the park), a housing complex in Fidenza’s historic city centre that features the highest possible levels of living comfort and energy efficiency.
Casa sul Parco is the fruit of the entrepreneurial vision of Montanari Costruzioni, who created the complex, entrusting the architectural project to DelBoca + Partners and to the architects Simona and Giovanni Rossi. It is a residential complex composed of ten housing units that are cutting edge in terms of their architecture and energy use. The building has received both passive house certification from Passive House Italia and active house certification from Active House Italia. The housing complex has also been recognised as a Multi-Comfort building by the French multinational Saint-Gobain, is one of the projects shortlisted for the Active House Awards 2018, and was selected to participate in the exhibition “Comfort in Mostra. Progettare, Costruire, Rinnovare l’architettura italiana” (Comfort on show. Design, construct and renew Italian architecture), organised by Saint-Gobain Italia in the Urban Center in Milan, in spring 2017. Casa sul Parco also participated in the selection of projects to exhibit during the current Venice Architecture Biennale.
Rada Markovic, the lighting designer responsible for the lighting project, had to come up with a lighting scheme suitable for the three zones of different heights and sizes that make up the building complex. The façade lighting has been designed to provide different power-on modes and optimise efficiency and the system’s power consumption. There are four available scenarios: Evening (active from sundown to midnight), Courtesy (active from midnight to dawn), Nighttime Passage (50% reduction in brightness and activation of some safety lights) and Daytime. The lighting fixtures are controlled with a DALI system and connected to a controller with a brightness sensor so that the light intensity can be adjusted to reach a preset value.
The portico, located under the zone that houses the vertical connections, features slanting pillars that support the building and recall the trees trunks in the park next to the complex. Recessed around the foot of these columns are Bright 2.4, 5W, 4000K fixtures with ±15°-adjustable optics for atmospheric lighting. The lighting project for the portico is completed with more of the same model of fixtures recessed into the ceiling and installed in the Zen garden. The access ramp and stairs are lit by low-power Bright 1.0 fixtures with a colour temperature of 3000K
For the terraces and gardens with containers that surround every apartment, Rada Markovic Lighting Design Studio decided to use the same fixtures as in the portico, Bright 2.4 from L&L, recessed into the wooden slatted flooring. The lighting in this area is finished with Spot 2.1 projectors, 3000K with 38° optics, fixed on stakes in the containers. Their light beams are directed on the vegetation to create shadow effects on the perimeter walls of the building complex
The rear of the building is flanked by the ramp leading to the garages: recessed in the paving are L&L Bright 6.8 13W fixtures, with a stainless steel trim, and screen in tempered, transparent extra-clear glass. The asymmetrical optics that characterise this model direct the light emission onto the building's outer perimeter wall
