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Lighting for Radisson Destiny Hotel

Close to OR Tambo International Airport is an impressive, new Radisson Hotel. The seven-storey building boasts 248 rooms as well as the luxurious Level Seven Restaurant on the top floor. Rubicon Lighting supplied most of the lights for this note-worthy project.

The client’s requirements

The hotel had very specific lighting requirements for its common areas, the luxury suites, boardrooms and restaurants. This included lights of varying lux levels and the ability to dim.

Rubicon Lighting provided lighting for all the hotel rooms – which ranged from standard rooms to various luxury suites.

The solution

The building of this Radisson Hotel was a collaboration between engineers, architects, interior designers, consultants, and other contractors. Rubicon Lighting worked with all these groups at varying stages of the project to ensure that the best possible lighting solutions were provided, and that installation went smoothly.

The lights used in the main areas of the hotel, including the reception area, restaurants, board rooms and luxury suites, all included Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) drivers. These drivers allow the lights to be controlled individually or as a group. They are connected to a digital control and communication system.

Some of the hotel’s decorative lighting was provided by a different supplier. These are some of the lighting and automation solutions used in this project.

LED15W downlights: Rubicon Lighting used LED15W downlights for the hotel’s ground floor. Georgia Cariano Nave, Rubicon Lighting’s architectural lighting consultant, chose these for their beautiful reflectors and white trim. These dimmable lights use DALI drivers and were connected to the hotel’s lighting automation system.

Erin downlights: Rubicon Lighting-exclusive Erin downlights of 3,000 Kelvin were installed in the bedrooms, passages and basement. These fittings use GU10 lamps and have an anti-glare feature. IP-rated Erin lights were used in the bathrooms to prevent water and steam from damaging the fittings.

Strip lights: Strip lights consisting of Light Frame 5 profiles with 3,000 Kelvin, 400 Lumen strip LEDs was used in various parts of the building. These soft glow lights create interest and ambience in the recessed ceiling coves of the hotel’s communal areas. They can be controlled remotely along with the other lights in the common areas.

In the bedrooms, strip lights were used under the vanities, in the coves above the toilets, and at the headboards of the beds shining upwards. They were also used at certain intervals in the passages. Rubicon Lighting supplied and did the installation of these lights.

KNX automation system: Rubicon Lighting supplied and installed a KNX building automation protocol to control and communicate with the lights. The system was incorporated on the ground floor, restaurants, board rooms and luxury suites.

The project’s building automation lead, Rohan Kotze, installed touch panels in the boardrooms to set scenes, or light levels, depending on what the rooms were being used for. Lights on this system are linked to software on an iPad, which gives hotel staff, management, or guests the flexibility to remotely dim or switch them on and off if necessary.

Rubicon Lighting installed a large touchpad in the Level Seven Restaurant which allows staff to dim certain areas of the restaurant, while other parts remain brightly lit.

Exterior lights: Several different lights were supplied by Rubicon Lighting for the hotel’s exterior. These included black stainless steels spike lights with GU10 lamps and inground up lights.

Rubicon Lighting worked closely with the contractors on site to get everything installed on time after the deadline was brought forward so that the hotel would be completed in time for a conference.

Cariano Nave has received positive feedback about the work Rubicon Lighting did at the hotel. “Everybody’s pretty ecstatic about the way it’s turned out,” she says. “They’re happy with the service we gave, the products we specified, and the time frames we stuck to.”

She says Rubicon Lighting prides itself in getting the job done quickly and quietly in the background. “We are the little elves behind the scenes. Nobody knows that we’re there, but light appears!”

Client feedback

“The team commended the extra mile Rubicon Lighting went during project execution when the pressure was on. Maintaining professionalism and their ethos as an organization always shines through when dealing with their team.” – Dean Pillay, Director | CKR Consulting Engineers