When the investment firm of Stone & Youngberg chose the Ferry Building for its new San Francisco office, Studios Architecture retained Architecture & Light to help them meet two critical challenges: create a visually appropriate VDT environment in a space flooded with daylight, and integrate modern light fixtures with the classic architecture of this historic building.
 
 
Completed in 1896, the Ferry Building features a continuous skylight of monumental proportions and rows of period windows on the upper walls. Its landmark status precluded the installation of a full drop ceiling to control glare and light levels in the trading floor area. Further, a drop ceiling would eliminate daylight from the rest of the space as would mechanized shades covering the ornate windows.

Our solution was to collaborate closely with Studios to develop a vaulted ceiling – suspended over the visually critical trading floor area only – thereby sheltering the area from direct sunlight while keeping the windows and skylight visible and allowing daylight into the rest of the space. This approach gives the trading floor its strong sense of “place” within the cavernous interior, with the vault’s classic geometry recalling the building’s many original masonry arches. With daylight intrusion effectively controlled, indirect fluorescent fixtures were used to supply the trading floor with the appropriate level of low-glare illumination,
 
   
 
 
 

While the lighting requirements of some historic building projects can be met by retrofitting original or reproduction fixtures with modern internal components, others, including Stone & Youngberg, require performance available only from fixtures of completely modern design.

To visually integrate contemporary fixtures into the Ferry Building’s architectural aesthetic, Architecture & Light opted to “hide fixtures in plain sight” by specifying shapes, materials, finishes and sizes compatible with existing architectural, structural and mechanical elements. In some cases, fixtures were attached to trusses, creating the impression that the fixtures themselves are structural elements.

 
 
   
 
 
The architecturally varied Stone & Youngberg space called for a wide variety of integration techniques. The reception area alone, for example, called for two separate approaches.

The front of the reception desk itself was designed as a luminous panel, turning furniture into a light fixture, while the wall behind it is grazed by recessed cove lights. The resulting layers of light add visual interest, highlighting the architecture and creating a strong impression on visitors.
For more information on this and other architectural lighting solutions, don’t hesitate to contact Darrell Hawthorne, principal of Architecture & Light’s Lighting Design Studio.