For its new office, Focus Lighting joined three separate buildings on West 116th Street, giving the lighting firm a unique storefront and street presence on a busy Harlem thoroughfare (bottom right). With ample space, the new office has room for an informal staff meeting-lunch area (top right) and a double-height mock-up area that, by all accounts, can function as a small black box theater (far left). Natural light permeates the space thanks to a system of 45 tubular skylights. Electric light sources are used to supplement the natural light in the work area, which brings the staff of 25 together in one space as opposed to the seven different areas, as when the office was divided at its former location on West 101st Street. Lighting and HVAC equipment each have their own breaker panel installed in the basement so that each load can be monitored and tracked separately via a data logger. The commercial-grade data logger is a small box measuring 5-inches-square and only cost a few hundred dollars, a small investment for the firm to track its energy use. To make sure the office design would meet the applicable energy code stipulations (90.1-2004), Focus Lighting used the COMcheck software program to make sure each space was in accordance with its interior lighting and power needs. Not only does the lighting comply, but the design is 23.9 percent better than allowable code levels.
