Illuminating a Vision for Public Safety at Indio Civic Campus | P2S
Swipe To Continue
Swipe To Continue

Illuminating a Vision for Public Safety at Indio Civic Campus

Introducing an Integrated
Civic Environment

The Indio Civic Campus project, a recipient of the 2026 Lumen West Award, brings together several key community amenities as a resilient hub for the most populous city in California’s Coachella Valley. Its centerpiece is the Indio City Hall, nearly 38,000 square feet, and in the heart of downtown Indio. A public library building, serving as the new home for the Max T. McCandless Branch of the Riverside County Library System, meets a plaza with a dedicated greenbelt and desert landscaping. Working in tandem, these public safety facilities unite in a single integrated civic environment shaped by the region’s extreme desert climate. 

Developing a Cohesive
Lighting Language

The campus accommodates a range of operational needs, and as such, the lighting design for City Hall was developed to balance extended civic use with the responsibility of creating a welcoming, community-oriented presence that reflects transparency and accessibility.

The buildings are composed of angular, boulder-like forms that echo the surrounding desert landscape. Fractured geometries and angled columns connect the floors and soften the scale of the complex. The lighting design reinforces this language by emphasizing sharp edges, corners, and vertical breaks. Integrated pedestrian scale lighting softens the campus at ground level, enhancing approachability while maintaining a cohesive lighting language across all buildings.

Embodying Indio’s
Unique Character

An award-winning design means specificity and creativity, taking the unique footprint of a city and weaving it into the overall vision. Indio, the “City of Festivals,” annually hosts a diverse range of arts events, famously including the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and Stagecoach Country Music Festival. More than a vibrant tourist destination, it has also solidified itself as the fastest-growing city in the Valley, embraced as an accessible, community-facing city with nationally recognized public safety services. 

At the Indio Civic Campus’s façade, the lighting design draws from the city’s festive character expressed through state-of-the-art colored window frames, creating a clear focal point. One challenge our team faced in the design process was integrating a concealed light fixture that achieved the illuminated panel effect while performing reliably in extreme desert conditions. To facilitate this, mockups and close coordination with manufacturers helped refine light reflection, concealment, and long-term performance in line with design intent.

Customizing Lighting
Controls for Civic Use

At the Indio Civic Campus, lighting controls are zoned to support varied civic use patterns. The control approach combines astronomical time clocks, time-based scheduling, occupancy sensing, and override capability.

Default settings prioritize energy efficiency and visual comfort, while flexible scene-based controls support public events, meetings, and after-hours use. Dark-sky–compliant, fully shielded fixtures minimize glare and light trespass, preserving the night sky.

Setting a New Standard
for Civic Illumination

Post installation feedback from city leadership confirmed the design’s success in creating a cohesive, civic identity. “The completion of the 2026 campus is a direct reflection of Indio's ongoing commitment to building sustainable, welcoming public spaces that bring people together while accommodating the rapid population and economic growth of the city,” noted city administrators.

Since its completion, the lighting design at the Indio Civic Campus has informed a broader campus lighting standard, remaining functional, resilient, and visually engaging after dark while reinforcing civic pride through its distinct sense of place and identity.