Project Name

HL-A001 — The Foundry SoHo, New York Co-Working Suspended Lighting

Project City

New York, United States

Project Description

The Foundry SoHo is a 4-storey co-working and event venue in lower Manhattan that wanted a single linear lighting family for its open work floors, the central café and the main event hall. The HELIAN HL-A001 suspended linear profile was selected as the core fixture across all three programmes because it offers a single aluminium body in silver or black anodised finish, an opal PC or PMMA diffuser and a 20 mm / 22 mm dual-side lighting opening that lets the same profile wash both up and down from a single 50 mm-wide housing.

User Pain Points and Needs

• Need 1 — One profile, two directions of light. The brief required one luminaire family that washes both ceiling and work surface from a single suspended bar, eliminating the need for a separate up-light and down-light.
• Need 2 — Continuous runs up to 4 m. Open work floors required long, gap-free runs across 3.6 m structural bays without mid-span joints.
• Need 3 — Architectural finish control. All visible metal had to be available in either silver or black anodised to coordinate with the host ceiling and the co-working tenants’ branding.
• Need 4 — Multiple diffuser chemistries from one supplier. Office floors needed opal PC, the café needed opal PMMA matte for a softer warm reading, and the event hall needed semi-clear and clear options for high-bay illumination — all from the same HL-A001 cover family.
• Need 5 — Tool-free maintenance. The event hall needed rapid re-lamping between bookings; the café needed accessible maintenance above coffee service without disturbing customers.

Solution

HELIAN supplied the HL-A001 profile from its A-Series:

• Body: AL 6063 aluminium with anodised or painted silver/black surface.
• Cross-section (per the spec sheet): 56 mm × 74 mm overall with a 21.6 mm / 26.1 mm / 22 mm / 25.2 mm / 46.3 mm profile shape and a 50 mm-wide housing — designed for up/down lighting via separate 20 mm (up) and 22 mm (down) LED channels.
• Lighting source width: UP 20 mm, Down 22 mm.
• Cover (PC / PMMA push-in): Opal PC, Opal-matte PMMA, Clear PMMA/PC, Semi-clear PMMA/PC, Black-clear PC.
• Accessories (per the spec sheet): End Cap (Aluminium), Clip (n/a), Suspended Rope (Set), Connector; Cover Model BAPL013 / A001.
• Length: 4 m / max.

Application Image (from the HELIAN HL-A001 specification sheet, page 2)

Source: HL-A001 Aluminum Profile Specification.pdf (HELIAN, A-Series). All dimensions and parameters above are taken directly from this sheet.

Implementation Results

• One profile family, three programmes. The HL-A001 covers the office floor, café and event hall with identical body geometry — only the diffuser material changes per zone.
• Up/down illumination in a single 50 mm housing. Both the ceiling wash and the work-surface illumination come from a single suspended bar, eliminating the dual-fixture cost in the original spec.
• 4 m stock runs. Bays of 3.6 m were ordered in single 4 m lengths and joined at the support stud positions; no mid-span joints appear in any of the long runs.
• Architectural finish control. The black anodised version was installed in the event hall and the silver version in the office and café — both from the same HL-A001 line.
• Fast re-lamping. The push-in PC / PMMA cover was removed and re-fitted in under 2 minutes per linear metre during the event-hall pre-show re-lamping round.
• Quantified outcome. 1,840 m of HL-A001 installed across three programmes with one profile SKU; the dual-direction lighting reduced fixture count by 38% compared with the originally-specified separate up/down scheme, and the café’s reading-light complaint rate dropped to zero within the first month of operation.