For centuries, this station has been one of the first things that meets new travellers coming into the city. Over time the functions of the station have transformed from a travelling hub to incorporating shopping areas and commercial interests. The new lighting design had to balance, the commercial requirements, and the passengers passing through, while respecting the original architecture.

The team was tasked to create a new lighting design that would balance respect for the original architecture with the commercial requirements of the space, the needs of the passengers passing through, and upgrade the current lighting controls and ensure energy-optimization.

The design process included interviews with maintenance manager and numerous onsite test lights. Throughout the project the team worked in close cooperation with the stakeholders to ensure a solution that would accommodate the splendour of the site yet easy to control by the maintenance crew. While an ambition of being respectful to the historical values called for extensive surveys of historical lighting, the visual conditions, and a daylight analysis. The team also examined the building’s appearance, the existing installations, and their functions.

The overall challenges were to make sure the architecture, the commercial interests of advertising across the ceiling, and the needs of the passengers co-existed in the lighting solution. At the same time, this was a dark space (65 lux mean value at night) with little contrast or accent and discolored ambient lighting due to the fixtures installed above a greenish skylight. The lighting controls were in parts manual with simple on-off functions, which often resulted in mistakes and misaligned fixtures.

The team managed to convince the client to integrate the large advertising canvases between the ceiling beams for a more respectful and integrated appearance. This allowed for the space enhancing uplights to also light the ad-canvases when needed. DMX controlled linear RGB and White uplights are mounted on the ledge to light the spectacular ceilings.

Ambient lighting has been installed along both sides of the station’s central skylight. By use of small fixtures with sharp cut-offs the team has achieved minimal visual and physical disturbance of the ceiling. While a combination of medium and narrow beam luminaires with DALI control allows for more varied contrast and light distribution. The installation is programmed to let the characteristics in the ceiling shine through with everyday static or slow dynamic lighting scenes. In addition, the team introduced eye-catching displays with pre-programmed colored lighting scenarios for special occasions, e.g., Pride and National Day of Sweden.

Simple user-friendly control systems have been crucial for both maintenance and energy-optimisation. Thus, the team made extra efforts to speak to the people that would be working in the space and accommodate their needs. It all resulted in a seemingly simple design, with only three light characters – general lighting, uplighting and accent lighting.

Several elements have been crucial in making this project successful, including creating a sense of value for the client, giving them a system that is rich, useful, and relevant for a long time to come, so that they see it as a good investment. In addition, the team added a little extra to the solution by designing 10 pre-programmed scenarios to choose from, for events and special occasions, creating new experiences of light as people walk through the station. At the same time the system is easily adjustable for future changes, making it useful and relevant for many years to come.

The light levels now measure up to 700lx – ten times the previous installation, and with Stockholm’s varied light levels throughout the year, the new scheme also has an improved daylight control system for the general lighting. This means that in the summer months where daylight is more abundant, the general lighting dims down and saves energy in the process. Specifically, the use of daylight control and dimming reduces the used effect from approximately 10W/sqm to 6,5W/sqm despite achieving three times higher lux levels.

Light Bureau has successfully adapted the lighting solution to the modern and commercial requirements and functions, and created a lighting design that respects the architecture, the historical feel and the users of the space.