Concord by Sylvania’s lighting and control solution delivers energy efficiency, colour performance, and reliability for a local community church.
St. Christopher’s is the Parish Church of Hawes Side, which joined with St. Nicholas, Marton Moss in 2007. It declares itself as a ‘Society’ (traditional) Parish. Although the church has had a varied tradition over the years it seems now to be settling down, post COVID-19, into a sense of repair and growth while maintaining a Churchmanship in the more ‘catholic’ tradition.
Records suggest that St. Christopher’s dates to post-war times, with plans for the building last updated in 1989, before demolition of the old ‘huts’ and the building of the new Church and Parish Centre in 1999 and 2001 respectively.
This modern place of worship worked with Overton Architects and Harrison and Cross to implement an all new church lighting scheme. The aim was to replace failing and unreliable light sources (halogen and metal halide), while reducing energy consumption and costs significantly.
Sylvania lighting featuring the Concord spotlight range, was selected as the lighting and control solution provider, having previously worked with Overton Architects on religious and heritage projects for many years.
Coupled with this, the Sylvania Sylsmart Standalone control system which offers maximum control with minimum wiring meant it was the perfect solution for this place of worship. With everything installed wirelessly, designers could keep the aesthetics of the building intact and provide further energy savings. Dimming and colour change functionality are both controlled through the intuitive new system.
Energy-efficient Concord BEACON light fittings provide high-quality lighting (CRI 85) throughout the church on the easy to mount Concord mono-point bases. High product quality and long service life eradicate the previous reliability issues.
Additionally, Sylvania START ECO FLEX RGBW LED strips are installed in the chapel’s domed ceiling to add colourful interest and highlights, to support special events and occasions.
Mike Overton of Overton Architects, says, “Lighting a church can be challenging and it helps to have the input of a specialist with the benefit of light output modelling before committing to sizes and numbers of fittings. We have worked with Sylvania on several projects now and found the Sylsmart control solution useful for places of worship where we have the integrity of the structure to consider. The lighting products provide just the right light for every church activity, and together they offer a more efficient way of lighting a church.”
Father Martin Daniels concludes, “We are pleased with the new lights which have been installed and already been used to good effect. Whilst it has been an expensive outlay, it is already saving power which the old system used to ‘guzzle’ and we have a versatile, dimmable system where bulbs last a long time, so saving anyone having to go up scaffolding or long ladders. Not only this, it shows off the attributes of what is, a modern, Arts and Crafts style building.”
