Lighting Renovation: A Case of Aesthetic Appeal
Nestled among the rolling green hills and suburban neighborhoods North of Jackson, Mississippi lies Madison Central High School. Built in 1992, Madison Central High was designed to accommodate population growth in the suburban area north of the state capital. Jackson has a population of almost 200,000 and, as is the case throughout the country, families are heading for the suburbs to avoid traffic, crime, troubled schools and to improve their lifestyles. Therefore, Madison Central High School is becoming the educational home to a growing population of teenagers. In fact, the growth is so accelerated that the school is already in the process of construction on 28,000 square feet of additional classroom and commons space.

Lighting Challenge
Recently, the exterior of Madison Central High underwent aesthetic upgrades to improve the overall look of the facility. "The school is so critical and visible to this community that it has been fairly easy to win support for improving the physical environment for the student body," said James Reeves, Director of Facilities for the Madison County School District.

The lighting challenge was to find an exterior, building mounted luminaire that matched the aesthetic appeal of the school façade and that could withstand extreme weather and physical abuse. In addition, the product chosen would have to provide abundant area lighting for security after dark.

Lighting Solution
When choosing lighting for Madison High School, Mack Sorrell, principal architect for JH&H Ltd. faced the challenge of meeting his own aesthetic standards plus the performance requirements of the school, which he designed and had built over seven years prior. Sorrell managed to meet both objectives by installing Gateway -- low-profile round area lighters, new from Lithonia Lighting. "Although its wet location and vandal resistant characteristics qualified Gateway for the project, I was really sold by its aesthetic qualities," he commented.

Until now, the terms rough service and aesthetic appeal would not have been associated. However, school lighting specifiers have recently sought products that met their security and durability requirements without undermining architectural design. The development of Gateway area lighters was an inevitable response to that market requirement.

The Madison Central High School specification called for 49 VGR1 Gateway wall-mounted fixtures to be installed around the perimeter of the structure. Beside its aesthetic appeal, Gateway is constructed with heavy duty materials like die-cast aluminum housings, a one-piece silicone gasket, and injection-molded polycarbonate lenses. Therefore, the product is UL listed for wet locations and capable of withstanding physical assault. The circular, lensed fixtures feature shallow profiles, while providing abundant area lighting for after dark security. Although the Madison Central installation utilizes two 13 watt double twin tube fluorescent lamps, which emit approximately 1800 lumens per fixture, the product was engineered to accept up to a 42 watt triple tube compact fluorescent lamp, which emits approximately 3200 lumens per fixture. "We developed the Gateway for exactly these kind of situations: where the architecture calls for an attractive fixture, and safety standards require that the area stays well lighted," said Jim Nelson, Director of Rough Service Products for Lithonia Lighting.

Lithonia Lighting offers a variety of products that are commonly specified throughout schools. In fact, hundreds of Lithonia fixtures are installed beyond the attractive facade of Madison Central High School. From gasketed linear fluorescent fixtures in the locker rooms and kitchen to recessed 2'x4' lensed troffers in the classrooms, downlighting in the commons, wraparounds in the stairwells and emergency units and exits throughout, Lithonia Lighting is the predominant lighting supplier to the school. A school lighting Design Guide featuring Gateway and other Lithonia Lighting products is located on the Lithonia website at www.lithonia.com/designguides.

Conclusion
In the coming years, forecasted growth in school construction and renovation will provide many opportunities for specifiers to upgrade both the security and aesthetics of their projects through the use of efficient and effective lighting. Lithonia Lighting luminaires such as the Gateway series are designed specifically with these opportunities in mind. The students waiting for a ride after a nighttime basketball game and the parents who come to take them home will all appreciate the benefits of improved lighting.