Public Institute for Social Security
Kuwait, 2001
The Public Institute for Social Security consists of a three storey podium building housing transaction areas, a conference centre and a café. The 23 storey tower houses offices and an executive suite. The project uses nearly a quarter of a million Light Emitting Diodes in 800 fittings distributed around the edges of the building. The project is unusual for an LED solution, in that the majority of the fittings light surfaces on the building rather than becoming markers or visible lines or points of light. KSLD faced a unique creative challenge for this project, to design a lighting scheme reflecting the stature of this government building while incorporating festive lighting that will change from event to event and from year to year, essentially presenting a new face to the building on each occasion. The KSLD input to the interior scheme included the main transaction hall in the podium building, subsidiary transaction areas on the ground floor, the VIP entrance, conference centre, elevator lobbies, the boardroom floor, and the executive floor. The interior design is strongly influenced by Kuwaiti culture as this building is where all the population will interface with the government. KSLD have brought state of the art lighting approaches and techniques to the scheme. Lighting controls are used extensively throughout the project with push button panels and wireless graphic tablets for the executive offices, auditorium and boardroom to allow the user to create specific scenes and change them as required for meetings and presentations.