Take a look at any contemporary interior design magazine these days and you are sure to see somewhere in its pages the use of a bare light bulb as part of a lighting scheme. This is very retro. Very minimalist. It can look great, but it can also look as if the lampshade is missing! Fortunately some designers are now incorporating the bare light bulb concept into their luminaire designs. A perfect, and exquisitely elegant, example of this is Sofie Refer’s Bulb Pendant. Take a look at the following web link and see what you think:
61% Say Yes
A survey conducted by Cree at this years Light+Building trade fair in Frankfurt showed that 61%, of the trade fair exhibitors who were asked, thought that LED lighting would replace fluorescent lighting in office and commercial spaces within 5 years.
Another Step Forward With LEDs
Lamina Ceramics is launching a new ultra bright warm white LED at the 2006 Light+Building show in Frankfurt. This is designed to be powerful enough to replace halogen and tungsten filament lamps.
The new Atlas line is the same size as the company’s exisiting BL-4000 line, but twice as bright.
The Atlas Warm White LED produces more than 100 lumens, and creates a light output similar to a 10-watt halogen bulb but uses little more than half the power, and lasts 3-4 times as long.
The Lighting of the Future?
In a study published in the latest issue of Nature magazine, scientists from the University of Michigan describe how they have created wafer-thin sheets that, when connected to an electricity supply, can be made to create enough light to fill a room. Because these sheets do not create any heat the scientists claim that they are 100% efficient and can create up to five times the amount of light as a conventional light bulb. With an anticipated life time of 5 to 10 years they may well be the lighting of the future!
Warmer Lamps for L1A Compliant Fittings
It is good to see that lamp manufacturers have started making customer friendly lamps for the low energy light fittings required by Building Regulations Part L. Philips has recently launched special versions of its Softone range.
Stunning Pendant!
Leafing through the mountain of catalogs and trade journals that litter my doormat every day is a little like rumaging through an old curiosity shop looking for something special. Every now and then something really catches my eye and makes me go wow! See what you think of this pendant. I love it!
Illuminating Education
The Department for Education and Skills has a Classrooms of the Future project that is investigating new ideas on how school buildings should be built in the future. An example of their work so far can be seen in the London suburb of Richmond were a couple of schools have had some very novel classrooms added. The central belief behind the new buildings is that “the quality of the environment in which you learn, and in particular the light, space, colour and sound, make a real difference to how quickly you learn, and how much you enjoy learning”. To this end the designers have created an exciting and unusual way of lighting the space. Take a look at www.future-systems.com and see what you think.
LEDs - Sooner Rather Than Later!
For those who still think it will be many years before LED light fittings are used for general illumination in homes, there is a suprise coming! The leading supplier of residential lighting in North America, Progress Lighting, has announced that they will be launching a complete line of LED lighting products for the home this summer. The fttings will use warm white LEDs with efficiencies of more than 40 lumens/watt (high enough to meet the new Building Regulations L1A requirements for low energy lighting). What is more, unlike normal fluorescents, the LED light fittings will be dimmable using a standard dim switch!
The Difference A Word Makes
In slightly over a week the new Building Regulations Approved Document L1A takes effect. From that date the requirements for using low energy lighting in homes will become much more stringent. However I am pleased to see that the final L1A document differs from the draft in one important aspect. The use of the word ‘or’ instead of the word ‘and’ means that the requirement for using low energy fittings with an efficiency of greater than 40 lumens per watt is now stated as one per 25 square metres OR one per four fixed fittings. This gives lighting designers a little more scope as to how they choose to comply with the new regulations. I predict that this tightening of the low energy requirements will have the beneficial effect of fast tracking LED lighting into homes.