A Brighter Future for the Benton Bobcats

When the Benton Community School District needed to upgrade the lighting of the Benton Middle School/High School Gymnasium, Student Center and Media Center, Don Gibney, business manager for the district, turned to the Design Team of Shive-Hattery, Inc. to upgrade the dated look and improve the overall lighting.

Located 30 miles West of Cedar Rapids in Van Horne, Iowa, the school was built in 1981 and desperately needed a remodel. In the gymnasium, the school complained of bright and dark spots across the gym floor and dark perimeter walls. “Playability was reduced due to the brightness of the exposed lamp in the 400W mercury vapor high-bays,” says David Wray, electrical engineer for Shive-Hattery, Inc. “The average light level on the floor was sufficient, but the gym was uncomfortable. Don Gibney indicated that the walls were going to be repainted and asked that we try to improve the lighting level, uniformity and overall space.”

Large aperture Lumark Benchmark RB Low-Bay fixtures were specified to create uniform lighting and improve the illumination on the perimeter walls. “We selected the 400W pulse start metal halide lamp combined with a high reactor HPF ballast such that we basically doubled our lumen output with slightly less power consumption,” says Wray. “We also benefited from softer lighting above the fixtures eliminating the “halo” above the old high-bays.” The old incandescent exit signs were also replaced with new energy efficient vandal resistant LED exit signs.

In the Student Center, the school district disliked the look of the dated, black, surface mounted cylinder downlights on the exposed roof deck. “The fixtures created striations and non-uniform lighting for an uncomfortable multi-purpose space,” says Wray. A previous roofing project left an abundance of black roof deck screws exposed. “The exposed roof deck tried to create a more spacious area, but it felt small due to the dark deck.”

“We reduced the amount of exposed deck using a floating sculpted cloud ceiling and painting the remainder bright white,” adds Wray. Corelite Class A D/I Open Baffle fixtures dramatically improved the lighting uniformity and the feeling of spaciousness. Since computers are not utilized in the space, the design team also specified white parabolic louvered troffers in the cloud ceiling to create brightness.

Similar complaints were raised concerning the lighting in the Media Center. Unattractive fixtures, non-uniform lighting at task level with harsh striations across tabletops, dim areas and harsh scallops on the perimeter walls were the major problems. “Just like the Student Center, we installed a floating sculpted cloud ceiling over the book stack area and painted the remainder of the exposed deck bright white,” says Wray. To improve the lighting in the stack area, the Corelite Stellar direct-indirect fluorescent luminaire was suspended from the cloud to produce high vertical footcandle illumination. “Due to the higher deck height over the seating area, we also used high output 1.20 ballast factor electronic ballasts in the Corelite Class A D/I Open Baffle fixture to boost the light output,” says Wray.

The school is now the envy of its neighboring schools. “The community is very impressed with the results of the project,” says Wray. “Neighboring schools tour the building and comment on the success of the remodel.”

 

Credits:

Shive-Hattery, Inc., Cedar Rapids, IA

Dave Wray, PE, LC, Electrical Engineer

Ken Pfeifer, Electrical Designer

Jeff Clauson, Project Manager

Paul Newman, AIA, LEED, Architect

Photography: Shive-Hattery, Inc.