Sixty-eight years after its founding, RAB Lighting is transforming and repositioning itself from a traditional exterior lighting manufacturer into an environmentally-focused, high-tech manufacturer of interior & exterior LED lighting.

The goal of this 4 year renovation & expansion was to develop a facility that allows the company to triple in size while providing the capability to consolidate the design, prototyping, testing, manufacturing & marketing of LED lighting products under one roof. The intent was to increase quality while decreasing the time & cost of innovation while developing new products.

The project’s design is based on an extensive analysis of RAB’s program, operations and future growth goals; these were distilled into performative diagrams providing a non-formal “design intent” whose framework outlined the important adjacencies, relationships and flows within the organization. Differentiated working environments were developed to reflect the diverse departmental needs. By referencing the analysis, these varied environments were tied together in an open, consistent manner.

Because the company is continuously introducing new products, training customers (distributors, lighting designers, architects & electricians) is key to the company’s growth strategy. As a result, the development of a large interactive training facility at the center of the project became key. Training sessions now occur several times a month. Wiith over 3,000 people having already been trained, this facility has become crucial to the success of newly launched LED products.

These training sessions include facility tours, so creatively showcasing the company’s new interior products in-use became important. Many of the interior products now installed did not exist at the project’s inception and most were in development during construction. This project provided opportunities to install, test & improve many products and is also the first installation of the recently launched interior fixture line.