Delos is a wellness real estate and technology company that is transforming the lives of people around the world by creating residential and commercial spaces designed to improve health,
well-being and performance. Informed by seven years of research and rigorous analysis of environmental health impacts on people, Delos and its affiliates offer an array of innovative technology, consulting and design solutions for residential and commercial spaces.
As the New York-based team started outgrowing their first home, Delos saw an opportunity to build a new headquarters that would exemplify this mission. Delos worked with Gensler and lighting designer Atelier Ten to design the 19,300 sq ft New York City headquarters.
Going into the project, Delos had outlined design goals: Make the headquarters a showcase for Delos’ core wellness values and human-centric offerings; Give employees a truly adaptable space, offering a variety of work environments for different tasks; Give every employee access to natural light throughout the space; Pursue and achieve WELL Platinum, LEED Platinum, & the Living Building Challenge certifications.
“As a company focused on transforming the indoor environment for people, we wanted to exemplify to our clients and industry partners that we’re supporting the health and well-being of our own employees,” notes Janna Wandzilak, Director, Delos Solutions, WELL Faculty, LEED AP. Pursuing three separate building standards called for a high degree of collaboration between the designers, project managers and manufacturers. Janna Wandzilak, Director at Delos and the team’s go-to materials specialist carefully vetted close to 2,000 different products, speaking with manufacturers and studying their supply chains to conduct a rigorous evaluation against LEED and WELL certification requirements. Caitlin Toczko, Senior Lighting Designer at Atelier Ten led the team in tackling the various challenges of balancing the lighting features of WELL version 1 with the sustainability requirements of LEED version 4. Meticulous placement
and calibration of Ketra’s tunable light sources were critical for balancing lighting power density (LPD) reduction for LEED with melanopic lux (EML) optimization for WELL.
The WELL Building StandardTM was founded on seven concepts of wellbeing in the built environment. One of these concepts is lighting, which WELL version 1 organizes into 13 lighting “features.” Ketra’s high degree of tunability and control along with its pre-programmed Natural Light show offered a solution that tightly aligned with WELL’s lighting requirements. Caitlin Toczko, Senior Lighting Designer at Atelier Ten, along with the Delos project team selected Ketra lighting because: The uniformity of color across Ketra’s individual diodes produces extremely high quality light output; The control system and individual addressability of each Ketra lamp fulfills a WELL feature requiring small control zones; Lighting designers can tune Ketra’s spectral power distribution (SPD) and correlated color temperature (CCT) to meet WELL’s EML requirement without increasing light intensity and power usage that could jeopardize LEED requirements; Post-installation adjustments for specific CCTs within distinct zones and rooms can be easily addressed from Ketra’s mobile app to its wireless lighting system; Occupants have the flexibility to personalize the light around them as they see fit, providing them with the optimal environment for various tasks.
In pursuance of three separate building standards focused on sustainability, wellness, and productivity, Delos has created a home for their team that is efficient and optimized for employees, customers and guests. Whether it’s dark and cloudy or bright and sunny, Ketra’s lighting provides the right light at the right time of day.
