Lighting as Art

With the use of LED’s, lighting designers are able to create using many more types of materials than before.

Architectural Lighting Works is using handmade paper encased within laminated glass to create sconces that seem more like glowing works of art than wall sconces of old. Because of LED’s (light emitting diodes), these elegant lighting devices can backlight the laminated glass. The variety of options for the laminated glass is seemingly endless, as any handmade paper can be encased within the laminated glass to create the style, color and pattern that you desire.

The recessed lighting fixtures come in 12” squares, 12” x 24” rectangles and 6” x 18” rectangles and only protrude 3 ½” from a wall. The surface mounted fixtures flat glass units also only protrude 3 ¼” and their rounded glass units only protrude 4” from the wall.

This is an important element when designing for public spaces. Designers for public spaces need to consider people who are visually impaired or those with walking impairments who may need a wall for stability.

Why have LED’s made this possible? LED’s produce less heat than an incandescent or MR16 lamp. When an incandescent lamp is on, approximately 90% of the power consumed by an incandescent lamp is emitted as heat versus visible light. The laminated glass would become too hot to touch if you accidentally bumped into the fixture to this design to work with incandescent lamps.

The other issue is size. Imagine how large a sconce of this type would have to be to allow for an incandescent lamp to be located within the housing of the fixture.

MR16 lamps are much smaller than an incandescent, but put out a great deal of heat. They were originally designed for use in slide projectors. The other issue for MR16 lamps is the need for a transformer to convert 120 or 240 voltages to 12 volts or low operating voltage. The requirements for placing a transformer with the area of small, very narrow boxes set in walls have not allowed for designers to be able to utilize some of the more decorative elements that we are now seeing.

As technology has developed we are now able to have elegant, stylistic lighting elements in our homes and workspaces that produce less heat, allow the lamps to last much longer and have lower energy consumption. As technology develops, this new LED lighting should become more affordable for all.

So What is the Big Deal About LED’s?

Light-emitting diodes are being used for all kinds of lighting projects these days. Some of the applications are good uses while others are not.

PROS

Light: LED’s first gained national public attention as rope lighting. So why is everyone trying to work them into a lighting design? They produce more light per watt than an incandescent lamp, which creates more heat than light per watt.

Color: You can also use LED’s to produce a single color – red, blue, green – without having to use color filters, which is more efficient and can lower costs.

Size: LED’s are smaller than most existing lamps. This allows for designers to reduce the size and dimensions of their product.

Speed: LED’s respond to full brightness faster. When the switch is turned on, they take only a microsecond compared to other lamps (HID), which can take up to 15 minutes to reach full brightness.

Cycling: If we are typically turning on and off a light multiple times in a day, we will burn a lamp out in a very short time. Consider how may times we use our turn signal in our cars. LED’s are the perfect choice for such applications. Cycling LED lights does not affect their lamp life and they reach full brightness almost instantly.

Materials: Because LED’s emit heat through the base and not the lamp itself, they are able to be used in decorative lighting fixtures with a wider range of materials than before.

Life Span: Incandescent lamps last approximately 1,000-2,000 hours; fluorescent tubes, like those in overhead fixtures, last 10,000-15,000 hours and LED’s last 35,000-50,000 hours.

Strength: LED lights do not break like fluorescent and incandescent lamps.

So if they can do all of this, why not change everything over to them right now? There are a few disadvantages.

CONS

Cost: LED’s are more expensive. Expense in the lighting design business is based on output of lumen. LED’s do not put out a great deal of lumen like incandescent and fluorescent.

Temperature: LED lights do not operate as well in high ambient temperature levels. They overheat and fail.

Lighting Coverage: LED’s provide more of a point of light illumination rather than a broad sphere of coverage, so it can take many more of them to cover the same area as one incandescent or compact florescent.

Color: LED’s seem to lean towards blue rather than white light.

The disadvantages seem small compared to the advantages. As time and technology move forward, these disadvantages may be easily corrected. What experiences have you had with LED’s? Would you be willing to pay more for that extended life?

This House Is In the Water, Intentionally

Somewhere in the middle of January I began thinking about warm, sunny locations to visit. I think it is an instinctive reaction to Midwestern cold and snowy winters, but Ageatic blue green water brings joy to my heart and serenity to my being.

When looking for a retreat, most of us look for a house on the beach so we are just a few feet from the water’s edge. For some of us, San Diego, Naples or the Carolina’s may be our destinations; others of us like to travel to islands of the Caribbean.

Two Polish architects, Jedrzej Lewandowski and Lukasz Skirzynski, of FORMDesign, an architectural and interior design firm, have taken their new design right into the water. Their project may be an eco-tourist destination. They have designed a single-family rental unit that is going to be located in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Zante Island in Greece.

This house is designed to have a counterweighted system that also utilizes seabed pilings and will be powered by solar panels on the roof (110 of them). The architects have used Corian as the white finish on this minimalist project that has a concrete and steel structural core. The white the surface of the Corian will allow light to bounce within the structure to create a feeling of illumination without using any energy. The vertical lines of the rails on the exterior are for another amenity – the shading system that is computer driven in addition to the radiation-reducing filters in the curtain glass walls.

The design will also be utilizing bouncing lighting from the exterior and underwater lights, which will be refracted through the water to reflect into the interior for evening lighting. LEDs and CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) will be used minimally for interior lighting throughout the project. Another aspect they have considered is having an interior garden. Whether it be green plants or vegetables, it will provide purification of the air within the structure as well as aesthetic beauty.

The project is said to have “eco-friendly features like the water desalination, energy accumulation, ventilation methods, water recycling, and tidal and solar energy systems.”

Would this be a destination of choice for you? What do you think of this design?

Issues When Relighting History

When working on historic projects, there are many considerations for a designer. Lighting design for exterior work in historic areas is complicated by new laws that talk about light trespassing. Light trespassing means that if you live in an apartment or loft over a store, the lighting for the sidewalks or the store entrance is not to “trespass” into your loft. In years past, homes near a car lot might have trouble telling the difference between day and night because of the amount of light that would “trespass” beyond the lot and into the homes and yards.

When working in Regensburg, Germany, the concerns were the same. They wanted to keep their historical fixtures that had been present since the medieval days, but they wanted to be able to control the light so it did not “trespass” into the spaces above the fixtures. Though the existing lamps (Mercury Vapor) were efficient, there were issues and the designers wanted to replace the lamps with LED lighting, which would improve energy efficiency.

There was also the issue that mercury vapor globes were used in the street lights. Mercury vapor has numerous potential issues. First, there is mercury in the lamp so when they burn out, they must go to a hazardous waste site. The larger problem is that to create light, mercury vapor lamps also create ultraviolet radiation. These lamps are encased in an outer envelope that filters out the wavelength containing the ultraviolet radiation, but if the outer envelope is broken, so is the protection. The mercury vapor lamps also do not give the same color quality as LED’s because they cast light in the blue/green spectrum.

The designers had Germany’s national electrical codes, which stated that in retrofitting existing lighting fixtures you cannot use the original socket in the fixture. Everything had to be rewired . Using a great deal of creativity, they put the ballasts in the roof of the fixture. They had the wires hidden in the metal brackets holding the fixture. 48 LED’s were used, allowing for great control of the light distribution pattern. 4-6 LED’s were used for the street lighting, creating a soft ambient light. The LED’s were lensed, non-lensed, dimmed or used at 100% to light the building’s facades and architectural details.

In addition to creating a beautiful streetscape, the LED lighting increased efficiency so each fixture uses 40W less of power. By careful positioning of the LED’s there is no light trespassing into the spaces above the street level.

Who Knew You Could Use Wood Veneer for Lighting?

I go to lighting shows every year so I can keep up on what is new in the industry. LEDs have been the big news for a couple of years. The world has decided that the scientific end of lighting is important right now, so everyone has their calculators out and are figuring cost savings.

Not that I am against green or energy savings, but there is a great deal to be said for design. Creating beauty and fun while still keeping energy efficiency is my idea of good lighting design. Most of the changes have been in industrial and commercial spaces.

So imagine my surprise when I found these absolutely fab lighting fixtures. LZF is the manufacturer of these gems. The design that first caught my eye is ANFORA by Miguel Herranz. The line has three types of suspended fixture that range in size and weight from 20” x 20” x 36” and 8 pounds, the next size is 20” x 20” x 53” and weighs 16 pounds and the largest of them is 40” x 40” x 69” and weighs 66 pounds. They also have a floor lamp and a table lamp.

Now, I cannot tell you how many times I have fallen in love with a hanging fixture or table lamp only to find there is nothing else in the line to go with that single product. With this line, you can have a phenomenal foyer light and then have a couple of table lamps in your entertainment space and a floor lamp in the family room.

These fixtures are made from reconstructed and natural timber veneers. They create this glowing effect when on. The light peaks out through the twists and loops and the veneer becomes a glowing element of the design. Everything they have comes in eight different colors.

Standing back and watching people’s reactions was fun. Everyone wanted to touch them. Each line of fixtures LZF has are unique and would add punch in a residence or a corporate entryway, CEO office or could even be fun in a library along a separation wall.

Since I typically go to lighting shows yawning, there was no camera so please excuse the phone picture of the ANFORA table lamp. But I think you will get how absolutely cool this line is. Have you found a line of lighting fixtures that made a design statement?

When is a Cornice a Lighting Fixture?

Remember that cornice that my husband and I wrote about that we created for our super long window?  Well, apparently we hadn’t thought ahead to far. When the cornice was up, we then wished we had thought of adding light to it!

We began the process of trying to find a small fixture that would work. We had a hard time finding a fluorescent fixture that was small enough not to protrude about the top of the cornice. There were a plethora of problems: should have recessed another inch; if you put the fixtures end to end, you had black spots between them; not exactly the look we were going for. Then we staggered the fixtures and that created hot spots and dimmer spots. Again, not the look we wanted. So far, we were not finding the solution for the perfect accent light we strived for.

When visiting a friend, we saw the soft glow of light we wanted at the top of their kitchen cabinets. They told us they had used rope light. Rope lighting would be an excellent solution because it is made up of LED (Light Emitting Diodes) lighting.

LED’s are all the rage now because they do not get hot like the ballast system for the fluorescent. They are less than an inch in height so they wouldn’t show over the top of the cornice. They use very little electricity and they last for almost forever. Hmmm, rope lighting easily comes in the length we have hanging on our wall over the windows. Now how to get electricity to the cornice…

Sometimes even we get lucky. There was an electrical switch box below our cornice end that turns on the outdoor flood lights. My husband (being the electrical engineer that he is) gave me a smile and went to work. After a lot of attempts, he was finally able to “fish” the electrical line up the wall and into the top of the cornice. He then hard wired the rope lighting.

In the evening when we want “mood” lighting, we can turn on the lighting over the cornice and we get this really cool glow. How do you create “mood” lighting in your home?