Milton Keynes Ringway

The brief

OVERVIEW

Milton Keynes was the last of the New Towns to be built and was formally designated in 1967. The layout of the main roads, kept separate from the residential housing, was revolutionary at the time. So too, was having a large shopping mall more than 1km long. This area in Central Milton Keynes, CMK, was surrounded by hectares of car parking spaces and administrative office blocks. 

Most of the lighting for this area comprised 4.25m columns fitted with the now iconic spherical post-top globe lantern. Another idea ahead of its time was to use “white light” for the city centre pedestrian areas. However, at that time (1970s and 80s), white light sources only delivered about 50 lumens/watt and they were later replaced by more energy saving 70W and 100W high pressure sodium lamps, albeit the light was “gold”
in colour. 

Challenge

THE TASKS WE HAD TO ACHIEVE

In 2016, Milton Keynes Council and Ringway, the contractors for the project, identified that the older lanterns were coming to the end of their useful life and developed a plan for their replacement. 

They then approached the designers at Holophane and their challenge was how to deliver a modern, ultra-efficient lantern which still retained the iconic style of the original units. The new lantern should also be future-proof in terms of controls and programming. It also had to be easily retrofitted on to the existing columns. As such, the new lantern had to have a choice of optical distribution so that it could equal or improve the existing lighting. 


The Solution

HOW WE ACHIEVED THE RESULT

The CityMax is an award winning lantern (Lux Awards 2017) offering a range of light output, from 2,000 – 15,000 lumens and four different optical distributions. The lantern, itself, is shallow in depth and circular in plan. 

In order to adapt the lantern to make it more similar to the original Milton Keynes concept, the Holophane engineers, in conjunction with MK Highways and Ringway, developed a specially curved mounting bracket so that in outline, it retains the shape of the original globes. The design of the new bracket is visually “lighter” than the globes and intrudes less on the view of the wide open skies over CMK. The bracket design also means it has reduced windage which is a useful feature when retrofitting on to older columns. 

DOWNLOAD CASE STUDY HERE

DISCUSS A SOLUTION OR UPCOMING PROJECT