The corporate headquarters of OfficeMax Australia, in Richmond, Victoria, is a busy office with various large open plan spaces housing sales, finance, marketing, logistic support and account departments. Stationed in an old brick factory, the office space has character to boot. One of the challenges that face buildings of this vintage is adequately lighting areas that haven’t been designed with a modern utility in mind.

John Karafillis and the management team of Office Max decided to overhaul and modernise the premises with a desire to create an environment that was bright and comfortable. The refurbishment would make the space a pleasant and productive place for employees, while showcasing a modern and progressive look to clients and corporate partners.

LEDified’s commercial lighting specialists conducted an audit of the premises, utilising cutting edge computer software to determine optimum lumen output and light spread throughout the diverse space. The largest open plan area is occupied by sales, customer care and account management. This beautiful space features a classic high glass ceiling but it was obscured by old-fashioned tubes which were erected across the length of the room — 3 meters above the employee workstations. The space felt unnecessarily cramped and the light spread was uneven, leaving some spots on the office floor dim, while leaving other areas very bright.

LEDified worked together with lighting designer, Neisha from Red Socks, to come up with a solution. The tubes were dismantled and LEDified high bays with colourful reflector cans were installed in their place.

OfficeMax2_600

The Results
The outcome is a spacious environment filled with natural light, something that was previously obscured by the old lighting configuration. The spread of light is directional and even throughout the workspace.

LEDified also retrofitted other parts of the office space, similarly improving the aesthetic of the newly refurbished site. Like many of our customers, one of the major reasons for their switch to LED lighting was the economic and ROI benefits. The business now saves $16,254 a year on their energy, and are expected to save $29,675 over 10 years in maintenance costs.

What Office Max didn’t expect was for the building to look as amazing as it does after upgrading to LEDified LEDs. The cost savings almost seems incidental!

Currently annual lighting cost: $21,463
LED annual running cost: $5,206
Total Annual savings with LED: $16,254
10 Year savings*: $179,575
Maintenance savings: $29,675
Return on Investment: 42%
Payback Period: 29 months

Energy savings are based on a rate of 0.15/ kwH
*Includes inflation of 5% p.a on energy costs and CPI Increase of 2% p.a on replacement costs