By Paul Coggins
The Sustainability agenda is currently the strongest driver for the introduction of LEDs into more and more applications. However, whilst LEDs can without doubt make a significant impact on reducing CO2 emissions they also offer architects and designers many more opportunities than simply assuaging their environmental conscience. Here, Paul Coggins, Director at Philips Professional Lighting Solutions, explains the importance of this new technology and the advances it has already made in changing the architectural environment.
LEDs represent the most significant development in lighting since the invention of the electric light more than a century ago. Currently LEDs are still continuing to develop with the efficiency more or less doubling every 2 years.
The diagram shows how LED development has out-stripped every other light source and the predictions by the DOE show this trend continuing.
More importantly the efficiencies are now sufficient to exceed the targets in Part L of the building regulations with lifetimes of 60,000h.
However, as this rate continues the main question is not when they will replace what by when, but what new developments will be made possible.
We are already witnessing how LEDs are beginning to create a new lighting landscape. Certainly they offer full economic and environmental benefits but they also offer a chance to open up a world of endless creative possibilities creating lighting solutions in places and ways that were never possible before.
Imagine lights that adapt automatically to the time of day, creating colours and effects to suit the weather, season or specific calendar events. Think of possibilities for design, fashion or safety when you can embed lighting into roads, building materials, furniture or even clothes such as jackets for police or road workers. Consider what city planners or designers could do with lights of every colour that can be programmed to deliver an array of effects.
Not just on/off or dimmed, but all kinds of states, even mimicking a video display. All this whilst minimising light pollution since the light can be precisely targeted and integrated unnoticed on walls and surfaces providing better solutions than conventional technology. Add to this the benefits of lower maintenance costs, low energy consumption and of course the general enhancement of the architecture of the building, then the arguments are compelling indeed. Clearly, this shift to LEDs will continue in the future.
Along London’s Southbank it is already happening. Take for example County Hall. It’s already imposing baroque façade is now equally impressive by night as it is by day. The exceptional lighting projection of powerful LED modules has meant that County Hall has become an equally distinctive and attractive landmark on the night time scene as its other famous neighbour, the London Eye. Not only that, but it opens up an attractive proposition for corporate clients who hire out the area for their own events giving them the opportunity to select their own choice of colours or to complement their brand image.
Further along the same stretch of the river the rather mundane subway system beneath the BFI IMAX cinema has now been transformed by the adoption of LED technology. Here, the forward thinking South Bank Employers Group recognised that by embracing the dynamic quality of LEDs they could not only inject a sense of vibrancy into the area but also create a greater sense of safety into an otherwise quite uninspiring and rather neglected subway system to the benefit of tourists and commuters alike.
However, for lighting designers and architects one of the most exciting opportunities which LEDs offer is the potential for new and imaginative luminaires to be developed. With LEDs we have a new scenario where the bulb and fitting can be replaced by a single lighting unit.
This still needs to be designed with thermal properties in mind, but we no longer need the large volumes of the past. Why do luminaires need to be straight or square - only because the lamps are straight? LEDs change the design rules enabling new luminaires to be designed for an inspirational environment that is pleasant to live and work in. Out go conventional flat, square, thick shapes to be replaced by irregular, thin, curved forms. Such thinking spawns a new approach to design replacing the conventional by the unconventional.
Lighting designers and architects can, therefore, look forward to exciting times ahead not only in the area of dynamic colour displays but also for white light applications. And, as companies such as Philips stand by their commitment to provide high quality LED solutions by offering 3 year guarantees you can rest assured of outstanding performance, product integrity and reliability you can trust.
The LED revolution has begun. The possibilities ahead are limited only by our imagination.
|
Digg
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Technorati
StumbleUpon
Google
Yahoo!
