Milton Hershey School
Spartan Center Elliptical Stair Tower
The Spartan Center is a sport and fitness facility that seats 1,800 and features a three-story entrance stair tower. The design concept for this tall, transparent space was to create a lantern-like effect without weakening its bold external form, while providing visual comfort for its users and maintainability for its staff.

The height of the space required extra care in locating fixtures within easy access. These fixtures also had to be positioned to eliminate offensive direct or reflected glare from the many glass facets. The lighting design included a custom stainless steel structure mounted to a central column supporting the staircase with twelve 100 watt metal halide fixtures carefully aimed upward for indirect lighting. This structure locates the fixtures at a maintainable height above an intermediate stair landing. The exposed lighting and support hardware complement the industrial appearance of the cables and pulleys that compose the stair railing.

Limiting the design to 100W metal halide sources allowed usage of color-consistent high CRI lamps. Additional compact fluorescent downlights mounted within the stair structure were provided at landings for highlights and emergency purposes.
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