An LED handrail was installed to illuminate the stairway at Divinity School in St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge.

Windsor Lighting installed an LED handrail at Divinity School in St. John’s College, at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, after a competition to refurbish the building. The refurbishment was meant to add modern technology to allow the building to be used for classes and research.

Due to the building’s stonework, traditional bulkhead methods of illumination were limited. Instead of using traditional lighting methods, AMA Architects, a South African architectural firm that won the redesign competition, decided upon using DW Windsor’s Garda LED handrail to light the five-flight staircase.

The custom made lighting solution was installed in a way to cause as little harm to the historic building as possible by using boarding to cover the stonework of the walls and staircase during the process.

The handrail uses a warm white light with a color temperature of 3000K, and uses asymmetric distribution to focus the lighting on the stairs. Because the building has uneven landings, each core-drilled hole, which were needed to support the stanchions, had to have their depth individually tailored to ensure the handrail would be level.

Garda handrails are dimmable, come in 24V to 48V AC or DC configurations, feature a color temperature of 4000K or 3000K, and have a CRI of 75 or 85.