For the past few weeks, my head has been buried in mathematics and layout drawings as I churned my way through the LIF certificate coursework exercise.  I’ll be honest, I did underestimate to a certain extent just how long it would take. It’s a bit like the Tardis. From the outset it seems nice and straightforward, but once your inside it it seems to be a lot bigger than I thought!

The task was to produce by hand (using lighting calculations) a full lighting scheme for a building with rooms of varying height, purpose and surface reflectances, as well as finding the glare rating of one room and the daylight factor of another. The scheme then had to be drawn to scale on the plan provided, and a Part L efficiency calculation was required. (I provided this in the form of a excel spreadsheet). Finally, you had to get the design quoted, and write up the project stating any important details & assumptions you had made along the design process. Any additional data used, such as suggestions for display and accent lighting also had to be included.

So a good few late nights and study weekends later, I managed to complete the work and submit it on time this week for review & grading. However,  I wont know the final mark until after Christmas, where there will be a 1-1 “interview” with the course leader to discuss the design and go through my proposals. Appendages crossed!

LIF lighting