25 Bank Street or 'HQ2' as it is commonly known is one of the monolithic towers at Canary Wharf built as headquarters to the world's leading financial companies. It is one of the current total of nine buildings and stands a proud 32 stories in the battle for prominence between the city giants. They are visible throughout London in all directions and can be seen from large distances.

Lightmatters were responsible for architectural lighting within the interior ground floor reception areas, the lower ground link to the new shopping areas and the distinctive and colourful signature 'light crown' located on the 32nd floor.

The ground floor reception has an outer skin made entirely of glass with the inner core and floor surfaces clad in a mixture of very pale and distinctive green marble. This space is lit with a combination of metal halide wallwashers in 3000K on the inner core wall and perimeter downlights (also in 3000K) to illuminate the outer core adjacent to the glass. All fittings form part of a family from Erco in order to create a unified look to the lighting layout within the ceiling. The perimeter downlighting consists of narrow beam reflectors carefully spaced out from the outer core in order not to provide splashes of light on glass.

The main features within the reception area consist of large chandeliers hanging within the central part of the space. These are huge linear glass and metal structures floating below the ceiling surface. They are filled with dimmable fluorescent battens which backlight the glass panels and a downlighting element consisting of a 3000k metal halide PAR30 to create narrow pools of light upon the floor of the reception.

The overall appearance of the space is one of a crisp fusion of glass and marble, brightly and neatly illuminated in an efficient and unfussy manner.

Within the lift lobby, there is a light feature above each lift door. It consists of backlit panels of alabaster. As the lift reaches the ground floor level and becomes available, the lower panel increases in light level to indicate this.

Also within the lift lobby, the back wall is constructed of a floor to ceiling alabaster unit. This again is backlit using dimmable linear fluorescents with incorporated reflectors from Fagerhult to create a gentle glowing surface.

Opting not to emblazon the company name upon the building exterior and therefore making it visible to a large number of Londoners, a decision was made not to have company signage in the same way as the other towers i.e. HSBC and Citigroup.

Instead a subtler but none the less effective building marker was realised. This consists of a colourful crown of light 'capping' the building at the 32nd floor level.

This is a double height gallery which surrounds and masks the plant area for the building, running around the whole building perimeter. The gallery has an inner and outer skin; the outer consisting of glass panels separated by air ventilation.

The lighting that creates the colour band is located upon the air vents shining onto the inner skin and reflecting off it. After numerous site trials of three different manufacturers' products and spacing tests to determine locations, AC lighting was chosen to provide specially adapted Solar fittings.

The fitting consists of a combination of 36 x red/green/blue 1 watt Luxeon LEDs with a higher proportion of green LEDs in each adapted luminaire. An 8 x 25 degree lens was also required on each fitting in order to achieve an even spread of light.

Each window is split into four blocks and there is one fitting per block. Thus with each fitting individually DMX addressable there is the facility to change colour within each individual block should it be required. The object of using the LEDs was achieved enabling low power consumption for this highly visible effect. In fact, the power required equates to that used by three electric kettles.

There are set sequences programmed for the colour band. Initially, when the lighting comes on, a band of blue chases around the building starting in one corner of the tower. When this reaches the opposite corner, the entire band cross fades to green. On the hour, the band temporarily cross fades back to blue and holds for one minute before returning to green.

There are other programs giving a variety of effects. Eg. Red/blue or green/blue chequerboard for special events and the ability to mix whatever colour/pattern or sequence is requested.

On the floors directly below the crown of green light are located the executive dining rooms for the building. These are illuminated in dimmed tungsten. In order that the contrast between the visual appearance of this level and the green band above is not too harsh, a line of Tungsten PAR20s are installed just below the colour line. When the colour band is initialised, the tungsten also comes on, mixing the colour of the floor below into the green band. As the evening progress, the tungsten is slowly faded out.