Lighting Controls
At the same time that the lighting industry is moving toward increasingly integrated and interoperable systems, a new layer of luminaire connectivity is poised to have an effect on the built environment. As part of the growing phenomenon commonly referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), manufacturers are beginning to embed light fixtures and even LED modules with smart sensors that measure conditions such as light levels, occupancy, temperature, and energy use. These communicate wirelessly and respond to distant and local commands, delivering data directly to facility managers as well as individuals at workstations, visitors to museums, even consumers at supermarkets and big-box stores.
These IoT capabilities present new possibilities for outdoor lighting systems at the urban scale. Manufacturers such as Philips and Current by GE offer connected lighting that goes well beyond turning streetlamps on or off. For instance, Philips is working with the city of Los Angeles and has outfitted its light poles with sensors that allow municipal managers to track energy use, determine if a particular lamp needs maintenance, and monitor grid health by detecting power fluctuations or surges. Some of the functionality has little to do with illumination: in September, the company completed a pilot installation of acoustic-sensing modules on 30 of LA’s streetlights. Susanne Seitinger, leader of Philips’s Global Smart Cities division, explains that the sensors process, map, and analyze peaks and averages rather than record sound. Some of the potential benefits are faster emergency response times after a car crash, or the ability to monitor noise pollution.
WIMBLEDON CENTRE COURT, LONDON,
POPULOUS | ME ENGINEERS
PHOTOGRAPHY: © AELTC/JOE TOTH
When the U.K.’s premier tennis venue recently replaced the High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps at Centre Court with advanced LED sports lighting, the owner, All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), tasked ME Engineers to revise the controls, which had been installed in 2009 along with the HIDs and the stadium’s retractable roof. This was to assure compatibility between the new fixtures and controls and to take advantage of the latest LED and control technologies. To do this, the lighting designers upgraded the software for the existing Quantum system by Lutron, which had been providing complete management for all of the lighting elements and such energy-management components as motorized shades. The updated system, which includes a DMX controller that communicates with every fixture individually, can be accessed via PC or remote keypads with an improved graphical interface. It is now possible to more finely tune the lighting during a game, eliminating potential glare (distracting to both players and spectators) and providing the appropriate illumination for television cameras. Custom programs consist of a championship scene as well as additional adjustable settings for the remainder of the year in areas of the building shown in tours of the facility. This system also integrates with the operable roof controls and is programmed to automatically turn sports and seating lights on and off depending on whether the roof is open or closed, although a manual override is available. Outside of the championship, a time clock and remote keypads control the house lighting for the tours and for staff. The manufacturer maintains that this lighting retrofit has been so successful that AELTC is currently considering a similar solution for its Court No. 1.
Many major LED manufacturers have already developed or are working on similarly “intelligent” lighting for building interiors, where a network of lighting fixtures can serve as the backbone for an indoor positioning system (IPS). Such networks, which pick up where global positioning systems (GPS) leave off, are being used in a number of different building types, including chain retailers like Walgreens, Toys“R”Us, and Target. IPS takes advantage of the ubiquity of lighting within stores, and can work in a number of ways. But often it communicates with shoppers’ smartphones via Bluetooth beacons integrated into the LED lamps or with visible light communication (VLC), which capitalizes on LEDs’ inherent flicker. These positioning technologies can help customers navigate the aisles and locate specific products and allow retailers to track inventory, notify customers of special promotions, and understand which areas of a store are most popular. The ultimate goal is, of course, to increase sales.
While sophisticated controls can certainly help an owner’s bottom line, architects and lighting professionals increasingly see such systems as a means of enhancing the quality of a space and the occupants’ experience of it. One example is the use of tunable-white LEDs. These lamps, which have color temperatures that range from warm to cool, can help regulate the body’s circadian rhythm (its internal clock), making people feel more alert during the day and sleep more soundly at night. The success of such lighting schemes depends on the amount and duration of exposure, color, and especially timing, points out Mariana Figueiro, the program director of the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. “For the circadian system, the same light given at the wrong time will have negative effects, while at the right time it will be beneficial,” she explains. “That’s where advanced controls can play a major role.”
NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART BLOCH GALLERIES RENOVATION,
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, BNIM | RENFRO DESIGN GROUP
PHOTOGRAPHY: © BNIM/KELLY CALLEWAERT
To create new galleries at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to showcase 29 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the Marion and Henry Bloch collection, BNIM reconfigured 9,000-square-feet within the institution’s historic Beaux-Arts building, opening up sight lines and adding more than 200 linear feet of wall space. The architects also took advantage of an important element of the 1930s structure: its laylights, above which the original architects created a 5-foot-tall attic space for installation of the lighting. “The building was thoughtfully configured for the lighting and its maintenance,” says lighting designer Richard Renfro. He and his team replaced the existing lighting above the laylights, which were modified to correspond to the new floor plan with Ketra G2 linear fixtures. These provide ambient illumination throughout the galleries. The interior of the attic space is painted white, enhancing reflectivity as well as the ceiling’s new slumped glass, so that it appears to emit a soft glow. Tracks installed below the laylight hold Ketra PAR38 lamps, to project the desired light onto the individual pieces of art. All the lamps are RGBW LED, wireless, color- and white-tunable, and individually addressable with the manufacturer’s own MESH control system. This enables the museum staff to change color temperature and intensity according to a curator’s objectives. Lighting for the whole suite of galleries can be managed. Alternatively, each lamp can be “adjusted and adapted on the fly” from a handheld device, for special events and educational programs, says Jake Ludemann, the museum’s lighting designer. For instance, during a recent presentation for a group of children, he was able to approximate how the collection’s Water Lilies painting by Monet would appear over the course of a day in natural light, from sunrise to sunset, within a span of 15 minutes. Says Renfro, “The technology is allowing museum visitors to see art in a new way.”
Figueiro sees the greatest potential for circadian applications in facilities that operate around the clock such as hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons. But these applications are also finding their way into the workplace (see page 113). Even the General Services Administration (GSA), which owns and leases more than 376.9 million square feet in 9,600 buildings, could adopt circadian lighting. With the help of the LRC, the agency has been studying the effects of both daylight and electric illumination on circadian rhythms in a variety of its buildings. The investigations, which combined photometric measurements with occupant questionnaires, attempt to quantify the relationship between certain kinds of light and alert-ness, mood, and sleep quality. The project could shape the way the agency designs and renovates buildings. “The goal is to make evidence-based changes to our [construction] guidance documents,” says Bryan Steverson, a GSA high-performance-building program advisor.
WILLEM II PASSAGE, TILBURG, THE NETHERLANDS,
CIVIC ARCHITECTS WITH BRIGHT | LUSTLAB
PHOTOGRAPHY: © STIJN BOLLAERT
Dynamic lighting responding to environmental conditions can enliven an urban space that might otherwise feel deserted or inhospitable. This was one of the goals behind the design for the Willem II Passage—an underpass for pedestrians and cyclists, linking the center of the Dutch city of Tilburg with a redeveloping area, on the other side of a set of railroad tracks, that had been a train-maintenance yard. The pathway, designed by Amsterdam-based firms Civic Architects and Bright, has walls clad with handcrafted glass bricks intended as a contemporary reinterpretation of Tilburg’s historic masonry architecture. The new bricks, which come in both folded and flat shapes, are backlit with 30,000 LEDs that change color and intensity depending on the movement of people, the time of day, the seasons, and climatic conditions including wind, temperature, and rain. The illumination sequences, determined with the help of Philips, are based on an algorithm and data collected by sensors, cameras, and a weather station mounted nearby. But since the environmental “inputs” are never the same, the resulting light show never repeats itself, says Ingrid van der Heijden, a Civic partner. The patterns are constantly moving, although only slowly, with low lighting levels and subtle colors during daylight hours. But people traveling through the tunnel at any hour are able to see the lighting respond to their movement, says van der Heijden. “If people understand their influence on their environment they feel safer,” she says.
If owners with holdings as extensive as the GSA’s were to embrace the capabilities of the latest lamp technologies and harness the potential of intelligent systems, the use of connected controls and their integration into the still nascent Internet of Things could soon become mainstream, say industry sources. “As long as we get the level of technology right, drive down the price, and get people to accept its security and reliability,” says Bokelman of IES, “we will create a platform that will carry us into the future—one that won’t be made irrelevant because it’s ‘just a light.’”
APARTIMENTUM, HAMBURG,
KLEFFEL PAPAY WARNCKE ARCHITECTS | NOTHOLT LIGHTING DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY: © HGESCH, HENNEF
“Smart” homes are typically customized for private individuals, but improved wireless technology, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the pervasiveness of digital tablets is facilitating such intelligence for multifamily dwellings. German tech entrepreneur and investor Lars Hinrichs developed the Apartimentum, an innovative 20-unit building with wireless connectivity throughout. Notholt Lighting Design worked with Osram, whose Lightify Pro Gateway was installed in each apartment, to implement 21st-century LED lighting in the renovated 1908 building. Each tenant has a wall-mountable iPad mini that connects to a MESH network via Wi-Fi. A pre-installed mobile app manages and programs tunable-white PAR16 and linear cove lights capable of circadian sequences that adapt to actual daylight conditions. Based on this principle, large fixtures in the stairwells mimic skylights for comfortable passage into and out of the building.
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