Lighting Technology Moves Forward, but Good Lighting Design is Forever

In the world of lighting, they say more will happen in the next three years than in the last 30. What a statement!

Changes in the lighting industry are unprecedented. Fixture manufacturing, lighting controls and lamp technology (commonly known as the light bulb) are all under siege. In addition, we are sorting through questions and trying to determine what is “green” and what is “sustainable” as our construction codes are becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. That goes for the world of residential design as well.

You may have heard that by 2014 you’ll no longer be able to buy the common incandescent lamp. Today’s fixtures are changing to accommodate the new lamps of tomorrow, most of which are still in development.

As we peek into the future, here’s what we’re seeing:

• OUT are most incandescent lamps. IN are an alphabet soup of lamps--CFLs, LEDs, CPTs (Cold Phosphor Technology) and OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes), as well as an ever-increasing reliance on high efficacy sources such as low voltage and metal halide.
• OUT are switches. IN are ways to automatically control fixtures used extensively in the kitchen, laundry room, patio and bathrooms, all of which will require a motion sensor, occupancy sensor, or a timer.
• OUT is the inefficient optic (or reflector). IN are high efficacy reflectors or no reflector at all, with the LED source doing all the work.

As a lighting expert at one of the country’s largest fixture manufacturers said: “We used to hire mechanics. Now we hire electronic and computer technicians. We used to be on a 9-12 month innovation-to-replacement cycle. Now it’s a few months, if not weeks.”

So how does one move through the maze?

Design.

Somewhere in all this change, good lighting design must prevail.  One must not allow the shake-up of an industry and the overlay of sometimes-complex codes to cast aside good lighting design. Our charter as designers—whether architects, interior designers or lighting designers—is the human condition. In our interaction with light, shape, space, color and texture, we have always been the managers of time, budgets and design intent. As our world moves forward, technology is now something that we have to manage as well.

Not long ago, technology meant hanging a TV on the wall or adding a dimmer in a room. Then it became the installation of a whole-house control system or a home theater.  Now, it’s about locating an array of solar panels on the roof, a fuel cell system in the garage automatic shades for repelling light or the converse, to embrace passive solar energy gains.

This is our blog.

We will offer ideas on how to embrace this new technology because, in some cases, you must. In other cases, it’s good material for a good design.  We’ll explore the building blocks of lighting design. We’ll look at how to accommodate the upcoming changes while maintaining the human condition.  We’ll also look at common mistakes, how to correct them and, better yet, how to avoid them.  We also want to crush the concept that good lighting design is expensive and only reserved for big iconic homes and buildings. The building blocks of successful lighting design are sometimes very easy. The concept of good lighting can simply be the absence of bad design. Being informed is a step in that direction.