Communal Lighting Guide
Choosing LED lighting has many benefits for your business. When you have the right lighting, you can provide the best working environment for your employees and create an inviting atmosphere in your building for visitors, who can easily find their way to other areas in the building. Additionally, if you switch to LED lighting, you will get the best quality in lighting and use less energy, allowing you to save money on your energy bill, but also on the long-term. In this general lighting guide you will find all the information you need about lighting in communal area lighting in your building.
Lighting in stairwells, hallways and bathrooms
Communal area lighting includes the common areas in a company building, which is accessable for all employees of said business. Examples of these communal (spaces) are stairwells, halls/hallways and bathrooms.
Downlights
Bulkheads
Emergency lighting
Wall and ceiling lights, but also spotlights (both recessed and surface mounted) are often used as bathroom lighting. LED wall lights, LED ceilings lights, LED downlights and LED floodlights are suitable for stairwell lighting and gallery lighting, but also for hallway lighting. In this case, the correct light temperature is crucial. Choose lighting with a colour temperature of 3000K or 4000K to illuminate the spaces well and prevent accidents. It's also important to use a UGR <25 as this distinguishes the steps, which allows people to use the stairs safely. Because in these areas there is not always someone present, it is recommended to use motion sensor lights. In this way you can save on energy costs on the long term as the light won't be on all day when it is not necessary.
Emergency lighting is mandatory for buildings and should be installed in all common areas, but they are crucial in stairwells and hallways as they often serve as escape routes. Our emergency lighting meet all the BS EN 12464-1:2021 requirements (BS EN 1838 BS EN ISO 7010, BS EN 3011 and BS EN 50172).
Lighting in entrance halls, receptions and foyers
In a business you find all types of rooms and every room needs a different type of lighting to create a pleasant working environment for employees and to enhance their performances.
Panels
Spotlights
Tracklights
For canteen lighting LED panels and LED downlights are suitable and popular.
In foyers and entrance halls it is important to create a welcoming atmosphere and to help feel visitors at ease. From here visitors should also be able to find their way to other parts of the building easily. Ceiling lights, downlights, supended fixtures, panels and spotlights are appropriate foyer and entrance hall lighting. When a building has an integrated waiting area in the foyer, wall, standard and table lights are often used to provide additional lighting and to create a pleasant atmosphere.
At receptions you can generally find suspended fixtures and downlights, which are often combined with wall lights. Make sure that the reception lighting has a glare reduction value of <22 for the reception desk to create a practical and pleasant work environment for the staff. Choosing warmer colour temperature creates an atmosphere that helps visitors make feel more at ease. In meeting rooms and presentation rooms, good and pleasant lighting is essential. Therefore, usually LED bulkheads, spotlights, LED tracklight (3-phase) and downlights are used.
Design lighting
In common areas such as receptions, entrance halls and foyers, design lighting is commonly used. Design lighting adds aethethic and important ambiance to a space and is therefore preferred in certain settings instead of normal lighting, such as LED panels. In a foyer design lighting welcomes people, makes them feel at ease and gives a sophisticated impression to visitors. At Any-lamp we also sell design lighting. You can browse through our assortment of pendants and ceiling lights. We also do project lighting for companies. If you want to know what your options are regarding switching to design LED lighting, then you can read more about it here.
LED Pendants
LED Ceiling Lights
LED Outside Lighting
In need of more intel to make the best plan? Check our other communal lighting content!
Communal area lighting includes lighting in many different areas of a building. If you still have questions about particular subjects related to communal lighting, please check the information below. In several blogs we explain the European NEN norms, but also what kind of lighting would be the best to use in, for example, hallways. If you have questions about how fixtures work, such as track lights or sensor lighting, then you can find more information in the blogs with this subject.
BS EN 12464-1:2021 standards
According to the European BS-EN-12464-1:2021 standards all lighting in common areas need to meet several requirements. This means that the lighting in these areas need to have minimum set of lux.
Area | Amount of required lux |
Canteen | 200 |
Restroom | 200 |
Cloakrooms | 200 |
Reception / with working space | 300 / 500 |
Reception desk | 300 |
Lounges | 200 |
Entrance hall / more freqent visitors |
100* / 200 |
Hallway | 100 |
Stairwells | 150 |
Foyer / with waiting area | 100 / 300 |
Elevators | 100 |
Meeting rooms | 500 |
* Keep in mind that when the lighting in adjoining rooms have at least 1000 lux, the light in the hall needs to be adjusted accordingly to at least 10% of the lighting in the adjoining rooms.
Good to know
Emergency lighting
We will explain more about emergency lighting here. There are two types of emergency lighting: escape route markings, which are signs that show you where the nearest exit is, and escape route lighting, which guides you to the exit in case of an emergency. Both types of emergency lighting are mandatory in buildings (including offices). We also sell emergency lighting in our webshop. Click here to see all our emergency lighting. If you still have questions about emergency lighting, then you can read here more about this topic.
Height of fixtures
When installing a light, you need to consider several aspects, for example the height of the ceiling and the type of fixture. The higher the ceiling, the higher the lumen output should be. When you have a wall light, you need to install it at around 1.70 m, so the lighting will be on eye level and therefore won't blind people.
What services can Any-Lamp provide to help you implement a durable and professional office lighting plan?
We'll immediately get to the point: our services can be as extensive as you would like it to be! Lighting expertise at Any-Lamp ranges from providing custom quotation to delivering tailor-made lighting solutions with additional services during installation.
Once you contact our lighting experts to help out with your office lighting project, they will rely on norm based light calculations (BS EN 12464-1) to create a lighting plan that is a perfect fit for your business premises. In this plan a map is included, so your own installers are aware how our LED lighting solution can be optimally implemented. Moreover, once our lighting plan is in place, we can showcase a 3D simulated version to give a visual overview on what the end result will look like. Interested? Contact us via 020 3608 6378.
Not in need of project lighting? If you sign up for our pro business account, you not only profit from the best purchasing conditions, but you also have a personal salescontact who arranges quotations, the option to purchase on account and/or the best delivery terms when products are in stock.