Lighting Company Karma at Thornico Building in Rotterdam

June 01, 2012

View a video of the Martin illuminated Thornico Building here.

There is something good going on at Thornico, a diverse family-owned business based in Rotterdam with a penchant for green values and a ‘Company Karma’ that espouses doing good as well as doing well.

The Thornico Group is made up of a variety of companies working in a broad array of areas from food to finance to fashion. At the Thornico Building, a large complex of office spaces, shops, dining and cultural facilities, atriums and large parking garage located in central Rotterdam, the ‘Company Karma’ philosophy is embodied by a host of green initiatives that includes the use of Martin LED lighting.

From grey to green
Danish design office Kollision, together with Martin Professional and in dialog with Christian Stadil, owner of the Thornico Group, and Thornico real estate director Ronald L.M. Bouwens, developed and implemented a complete exterior lighting design for the Thornico Building.

Some of those green 'Company Karma’ initiatives include covering large parts of the parking facility with live plants and integrating energy-efficient LED lighting as a communication tool for green values. This unique interplay between communication, building and visitor is a powerful form of branding that Kollision has coined Enhanced Brand Ambience, a communicative strategy that innovative companies can use to great effect.

Dynamic designs
Dynamic light sources that emphasize the company’s green values are used throughout the complex, including some of Martin Professional’s latest energy-saving luminaires.

Compact Martin Exterior 100 IP68™ LED wash lights and Martin Tripix Wash LED lights are used to enhance the car park entrance while Martin Exterior 400™ LED fixtures wash the walls of two indoor atriums. More Exterior 400s are used to illuminate outdoor flag poles. In the reception area, Martin Easypix™ LED strip lights add color to the reception desk.

LED facade
The most significant aspect of the LED lighting installation however is 170 meters of vertical LED tubes mounted on the building’s 4,000 m2 facade. The full-color RGB LED tubes with individually controllable LEDs delineate the architectural form thereby underlining the enormity of the building. Lines of LED lighting not only emphasize where the building starts and stops but also indicate the locations of the main entrances - all supported by a dynamic lighting design.

Nuanced shades of green slowly travel up the LED tubes, gradually giving way to rhythms of sine-like curves of green that travel across the facade's 200 meters. More ambient and sparkling expressions then take over, which give the concrete building an almost ethereal look. The new lighting design has the effect of lightening the appearance of the building and helping it to better stand out in the urban space.

Kollision developed the main lighting design and layout for the project, as well as the dynamic content and player system, controllable via a web interface. Martin Professional handled all lighting hardware supply and technical planning, as well as all commercial aspects of the project. Installation was completed by local supplier WL Techniek.