Russia – Moscow Novy Arbat Street: A low environmental impact renovation concept

Within the comprehensive programme concerning the planning and installation of outdoor functional and decorative architectural lighting on buildings, monuments and landmarks of the main streets, avenues and squares of Moscow city centre, an advanced lighting technology is already transforming the Russian capital in a multi-media showcase made up of dynamic multicoloured lighting schemes. Part of this huge renovation project is Novy Arbat Street, one of Moscow’s most busy, boisterous and fashionable central avenues hosting plentiful entertainment facilities as well as kiosks, pavilions and peddler stalls clustered along its large pedestrian sidewalks.

Plans for the construction of Novy Arbat Street had been conceived during the post-war restoration period marked by the dominance of Stalinist architecture; this six-lane avenue along with two front rows of high-rise, Soviet style buildings was then erected during the ‘60s, giving a definitely new look to the historic Arbat District. Located at Novy Arbat, buildings No. 6, 10, 16, 22 and 26 have now acquired a new lease of life at night owing to a purposely developed brand new LED-based sustainable solution.

The Griven R&D team has successfully faced the real challenge of engineering in a record time an incomparable custom-tailored modular bar, perfectly matching the several guidelines strictly requested by the project specifications. As a result, more than 2200 bespoke light fittings have been installed on the five towers of Novy Arbat Street.

Designed for true wall washing effects, the customized lighting fixtures installed in Moscow are super flux, high luminance colour changing bars featuring 40 RGBW LEDs grouped in clusters of 4 LEDs each. Their newly conceived optics combined with a purposely designed frosted glass, allow superb output with real uniform colour coverage especially on close-up installations. All of the units are self-addressing for digital data assignment with signal regeneration, as strongly required by the project protocols. The combination of RGBW LEDs, whereas the white LED features the custom 4200K colour temperature requested, offers an unprecedented astonishing white light output quality, as well as a wide variety of intermediate, vibrant colour hues. Other features, such as chassis finish, fixing brackets and IN-and-OUT DMX and power supply cables, have been delivered in the desired colour, dimension and length in order to comply with the specific demands of the customer. The IN-and-OUT DMX and power supply cables have come along with the units to provide the utmost ease of installation. Moreover, the plug-in and plug-out system has been programmed to deliver the due power to the whole line of 14 units installed on each store, avoiding any further electrical connection of single units.

1470 linear modules have been therefore fixed, with the help of tailored brackets, to the edge of the 105 balconies. Turned inward, they project a perfectly even and well mixed coloured light on both ceiling and front wall of each balcony. To complete the installation, 755 pieces in a further custom-built Polar Edition have been mounted on the roof perimeters, enhancing with an even and powerful light frame the top of each tower. The Polar Edition features a specifically developed electronic control, knocking down the issue of the consumption increase that the front glass heating of this version had initially raised. Our Chief Engineer, Giuseppe Froio, proudly asserts: “We set to work to bring about a suitable electronic board, capable of further reducing power consumption while ensuring a targeted operation of the thermal glass. The de-icing system prevents from ice formation on the fixtures as well as provides for an immediate snow melt. Our task was to integrate all of the specifications involved and we are now proud to have succeeded at the very best, with a minimum energy consumption product, which is certainly not a mere detail, but what we are extremely satisfied with is the total absence of scallops effect in the close-up light distribution obtained without affecting the powerful light output “.

We thank the author and the implementer of The Novy Arbat Architectural lighting project, SvetoServis, for their cooperation with us.