Barclays Center

Lighting Designer: Goldstick Lighting Design
Photographer: Helen Ice Photography


Illuminating a Uniform Aesthetic for a World-Class Arena

Often, the most successful lighting solutions are those that blend seamlessly into the background and allow other design elements to shine. Such is the case while executing the lighting design for Barclays Center, an innovative, multi-use indoor arena in Brooklyn’s storied Prospect Heights neighborhood.

Karen Goldstick, Principal for Goldstick Lighting Design, Ltd. (KGLD), was charged with lighting all public spaces in the $1 billion facility, from the arena bowl and Brooklyn Nets’ practice court, to the concourses and concession spaces, restaurant and clubs. The project encompasses everything from VIP suites to locker rooms to a full theater with stadium seating, each with a unique design condition and demand.

While the lighting design works to compliment the “unique feel” of the varying club, bar and restaurant spaces, one the primary concerns focused on maintaining uniform illumination, simplicity and ease of maintenance throughout the 675,000-square-foot arena. To that end, there was no compromise. KGLD sought tools that could produce a “blanket” of ambient light, with the goal of creating “lighting that really blends into the architecture,” while achieving proper light levels for the drastically different spaces with stringent lighting requirements.

Brooklyn-based real estate developer Forest City Ratner Companies broke ground on the arena in March 2010. As the NBA Venue Lighting Consultant, Karen joined the project in 2009, bringing with her 30 years of experience overseeing and designing a variety of projects of different scales. Her firm, based in White Plains, NY, specializes in sports and architectural lighting, a unique balance required for managing such large-scale projects.

The end product is a fitting compliment to the state-of-the-art arena designed by award-winning architectural firms AECOM and SHoP Architects. Located at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, Barclays Center is an historic feat for the area, marking the first time a major-league sports team has called Brooklyn home since the Dodgers left in 1957. The diverse space also hosts a range of entertainment and cultural events, with headliners from Andrea Bocelli to Paul McCartney. Jay-Z, a stakeholder in the venture, was the first to grace the stage, performing a series of sold-out concerts to kick off the grand opening in September 2012.

Achieving a Well-Blended “Blanket” of Light

When Karen began the project, she said LED technology was not yet where it is now. After much research and many product reviews she turned to USAI Lighting’s NanoLumen® industry-leading product family of 2.5" recessed ceramic metal halide fixtures. Here she was able to utilize the optimum source with the smallest visible impact on the ceiling to provide uniform ambient illumination in several of the Barclays Center’s key public spaces. The flexible fixture, available as either a downlight, adjustable accent or wallwash, can easily fit into a wide variety of environments, from private clubs to large public lobby spaces, while seamlessly accommodating changes in ceiling material, thickness and finish. The NanoLumen® fixtures have a wide range from 20-70 Watts and 10-60 degree beam diameters, allowing for a subtle, but consistent, “blanket” of illumination.

“It was a good solution for keeping uniformity throughout the building in all of these different applications,” Karen said.

The NanoLumen® is used as a “general ambient workhorse” in a multitude of spaces, including the Eighteen 76 Bar, which features contrasting ceilings of reclaimed timber and perforated metal tile ceiling, using both a wall wash to highlight the graphics and a downlight to provide ambient lighting. In the Honda Club, the NanoLumen® was used as a downlight in a metal tile ceiling with a different thickness than found in the Eighteen 76 Bar. The VIP elevator lobby, meanwhile, called for a wall washer to illuminate the signs for branding and ambient light provided by a downlight.

Each space at the Barclays Center has its own identity. The lighting equipment must remain simple enough to make maintenance easy, yet flexible enough to make modulation and control of the illumination possible as well. In the VIP lobby, corridor spaces and North/South lounge areas, the same NanoLumen® fixture was installed in a Hunter Douglas fabric ceiling. While these spaces' ceiling heights differ and call for different output (20 watts in the corridor and 39 watts in the North/South lounges), the same fixture was used throughout. In the Foxwoods Bar, the NanoLumen® adjustable downlight fixture was placed in a sloped ceiling of gypsum board, showing that once again the same fixture could be used, regardless of the architectural configuration.

Part of the appeal of the NanoLumen® is its 2.5-inch aperture, which provides the perfect marriage of innocuousness and high performance. In fact, the lighting team chose this fixture because it could remain unobtrusive while providing appropriate lighting levels, extended lamp life to ease maintenance requirements, with maximum beam options for optical control and variation.

“This is a minimal fixture that provides extraordinary ambient light,” Karen said. “It became part of the ceiling plane in all of these spaces and was used as a field of light in an architectural surface…It’s much more of a background feel, than an attention-grabbing, eye-catching feel.” Its 2.5" aperture 70W metal halide feature remains the smallest, highest performing metal halide product on the market today.

A Foolproof Design That is Good for the Long Haul

KGLD's intricate lighting designs weren’t just about aesthetics, but science and mathematics. A massive Excel spreadsheet was implemented to track and assess product and environmental information. The multi-year project demanded a “tremendous amount of illumination calculations” to ensure the spacing, quantity and layout of the fixtures was precise and accurate. The lighting design team worked closely with USAI to create a chart to organize and manage special applications while also facilitating mock-ups and demonstrations for the Barclays Center management to help explain and coordinate the end goal and desired effects of the lighting design.

“The real success of the project lies in the fact that the completed installation looks simple and unobtrusive. That's the magic of the entire team's years of design work,” Karen said.

To that end, the design team wanted a fixture and design that would be easy in terms of installation and maintenance. The NanoLumen® proved the right fit for the task, with its reflector-based optics (with options in 10, 30, 50 or 60 degrees) providing “flexibility in the field.” Facility managers, meanwhile, have fewer lamps to stock, as they are able to get a variety of features – spot, flood, wallwash, downlight, adjustable accent – “essentially by using the same lamp.”

“The contractors can get into a pattern and use the same fixture throughout,” Karen said. “It’s a foolproof solution. I did the specifying of the beamspread. All the contractor and maintenance team has to do is put in the same lamp every time.”