Snowhill business quarter is prominently located at the heart of Birmingham’s Colmore Business District, One Snowhill is adjacent to Snow Hill station at the Gateway to Birmingham’s Central District.

 Originally completed in 2008, the building has undergone a refurbishment to floors 3 & 4 which included a stripping back of the original conventional ceiling grid system. Keen to give the space a contemporary but formal look, the refurbishment started with a matt black treatment to all the exposed services. After this black and white acoustic element were added to the space to create visual interest. The challenge after this was to work with a lighting scheme that would look integrated yet create some visual interest to the space.

 Working with Interlink Electrical Ltd, RIDI Group supplied a mixture of linear lighting system products from their Spectral and RIDI brands. Spectral’s narrow opal diffuser S36 profile was used in zig zag shapes onto zones of black acoustic baffles. Elsewhere, RIDI’s VENICE extruded aluminium system was supplied with the low glare MPS optics in both recessed and suspended forms. Supplied in structured black finish, the suspended versions were supplied where the ceiling areas were exposed, and recessed ones were used to bind together the lines of acoustic rafts. What makes the VENICE system so special for Cat A projects is the integrated busbar connection system that means internal luminaire sections can be removed or reconfigured with ease and without any rewiring needed. A truly futureproof system.

 The lighting was supplied with full DALI control system where RIDI worked together with Simmtronic Lighting Control to provide a fully integrated solution. Surface mounted ADLR cannisters were also supplied to highlight perimeter bulkhead areas.

 The result is a refreshed contemporary look offering premium office specification of lighting to attract major blue chip companies.