This morning's blog post is a simple announcement. This weekend I'll be part of an event being held in Trenton, NJ centered on social empowerment and green living. Nominally, I'll be discussing Losing Edison, but if you're interested in how you can save energy and live a more beautiful, sustainable life with better lighting, then I'll be there to answer any questions you have.
Sustainability might not be something we think about every day when we walk into our office park or that skyscraper or our front porch (as I do) to start working. We don't think about how beautiful a space could be. We don't think about what impact we're having on the planet simply by working this way. Why?
I have a few ideas but mostly, I think this is all about habit. A recent NY Times Magazine piece described it this way...
One study from Duke University estimated that habits, rather than conscious decision-making, shape 45 percent of the choices we make every day, and recent discoveries have begun to change everything from the way we think about dieting to how doctors conceive treatments for anxiety, depression and addictions.
If that is indeed true that a big part of why we don't care about the built environment is that we are trained not to from and early age and that training is reinforced every day of our modern life.
When we shuffle into our nearby chain drug store with the high ceilings and the fluorescent light we reinforce the idea that retail environments should be flat and boring - buy the commodity and leave. When we walk down into our office and the linear fluorescent strip buzzes overhead we condition ourselves to associate that with work.
You might be thinking, "hey, I work for a big company. I can't actually effect change on something like this, my company doesn't even own this building." You're right of course. My fear is that this condition, the habit of working in poor buildings becomes engrained in decision makers as well. They've learned to tolerate this poor design as much as we all have...and so, nothing changes.
We need to find ways to fundamentally break this conditioning and to show people how good the built environment can be. Here are a couple of ideas...
Eat out at a nice restaurant.
I know there are no guarantees there, but if you go to a decent restaurant odds are some thought was given to the interior. Look around. Shouldn't some of the same thought go into where you work every day?
Go to a landmark or park.
Parks are a wonderful thing. As the weather gets warmer people will begin to flock outside to enjoy the warm sun on a bench. Yet most people forget someone designed and someone else built that park. Which means we can design amazing spaces. Why not design an place to work?
Have a mindful garbage day.
I do my best to reduce my consumption daily. Yet every Friday when I take out the trash my mind is blown by how much I have created. Our office buildings teach us not to care about the resources we use up. Someone else, after all, takes out the trash. Be mindful of your own garbage day and then look around the office. We're all doing it.
You see I was going back through some of my photos and I kept noticing the same things over and over again. It wasn't something new...but I was reminded that the light we love tends to be textured, full of contrast and shadows. Not flat.
Take a look at the spaces above..horrific right? Here's the scary part. Some day someone is going to walk into that building, maybe a new tenant, or maybe an energy auditor and say, "you know what? If you swapped these fluorescent fixtures out for LEDs this space would look amazing!" The tenant or the building manager will make the swap and everyone will be thrilled, they are getting more light using less energy. Look how green we are!
Yet, the deeper problem will not be solved. A few months later once the transition is no longer new the people that actually work under that light every day will realize that they are still working in a shadowless, colorless husk. A space that is too bright in the evenings and early mornings and not bright enough in the midday. A space that never changes and never gives their eyes a new place to rest. A space designed with the intent of being as flat and as boring as the screen they are made to stare at every hour of every day.
That's not green or sustainable. No one values a space like that. No one loves it and no one would fight to keep it. It's just a shell people are forced to sit and work in. You can waste the embodied energy in upgrading the equipment as much as you want. It will never make a space that's poorly designed truly valuable.
I say if you want true sustainability, then we must design and build beautiful spaces. Spaces that people find valuable and future tenants would love to move into. We creatives are few compared to the larger population. We must constantly sell the value of beauty beyond the simply being pleasant to look upon.
People don't tear down beautiful spaces - we celebrate them.
Today, I'm experimenting with Google+'s hangout feature. I'll be holding a public hangout to talk about light sources and color. It won't be an exhaustive conversation, just a chance to show off a few light sources and talk their effects on color. If you're interested, circle me on G+ and I'll see you at 4pm !
We're at an interesting moment when it comes to lighting technology and sustainability. We seem to be getting concurrent messages from lighting manufacturers.
LED has arrived! It's time to jump in!
LED is getting better and better wait till you see next years!
So which is it? Should I specify LED now or later?
Deciding whether or not LED will work for your project is a judgement call. I believe in many applications LED is ready for prime time. Here's my list of what to move on and what (maybe) to wait on.
GO!
Coves
Undercabinet
Linear Recessed (in ceiling) Applications
Shelf Lights
Task Lights
Wall Grazers
Color Changing Applications
Entertainment Projects
Many Backlighting applications.
Wait!
Most Art Lighting
Spot Light applications (track mounted or recess mounted)
Color Sensitive applications
A-Lamp Replacement
A brief discussion of the Go! list versus wait list. The Go! list means very often LED is a better choice than halogen or fluorescent applications. "Wait" doesn't mean "don't" it means TEST TEST TEST. Make sure you're comfortable with the brightness color and consistency before pulling the trigger on LED is these applications.
What did I miss? What applications are you thinking about shifting to LED?
Future Proofing
So if you decide LED isn't right for your art or product lighting application today, how can you future proof it? LED is coming to the most commonly used light bulb form factors first. So think medium screw base PAR30 and PAR38 envelopes (these also happen to be the easiet to dissipate heat from) the quality of these lamps is better because the engineers can essentially put more LEDS on the face of the lamp, creating more brightness and consistent color. LED is replacements for the MR16 are also here and of course there's the A-Lamp. Whether or not you think it's ready is a matter of personal taste. The folks at Macy's and Starbucks think they are...other major designers don't. I can't tell you what to specify. I can tell you that it's a smart move to make sure the fixtures you specify today will be able to drive LED in the future.
It’s impossible to overstate the role dimming plays in making lighting more sustainable. Dimming your lights reduces electricity usage immediately, but just as importantly, it extends the life of your light sources, no matter what type. The rated life of a given light source assumes its run at maximum brightness. There’s no hard and fast rule for how much longer a bulb will last if dimmed (it varies by light source, shape, input voltage and other factors), but dimming your lamps over the life time of owning your home will dramatically reduce how often you replace the bulbs thus reducing your maintenance costs.
There are essentially three types of Lighting Control systems.
Local Dimming/Switching (i.e. dimmers on a wall)
Single Room Digital Systems (and example would be the Lutron Grafik Eye Series)
Whole Home Dimming System (all lighting in the house controlled by a single digital system.)
Deciding which system is right for you is a matter of budget, priorities and lifestyle. Here are three important factors to consider.
Cost - Local Dimming/Switching is by far the cheapest, but there are drawbacks. First, dimmers take up a lot of space on the wall and can be unsightly. Second, and more importantly (to me) they do an inconsistent job dimming your lights and will do worse over time. A single room system is the middle of the road both in terms of cost and capabilities. The whole home system is the most expensive but also the most capable system of the three.
Scope of Renovation - Installing a whole home system into a completely wired house is much more difficult and costly, than installing one if you're doing a gut renovation. Nothing is impossible, but it's always easier to run the mass of wires required for a whole home system if access to the walls and ceilings isn't a problem. Most of the time, installing local dimmers (especially for halogen and LED lights) is very simple for any electrician. If you're renovating a high traffic/high value area of your home like the kitchen or dining room, consider installing a lighting control system for just that area.
Lifestyle - are you the type of person who will always want to tweak a dimmer every time you turn the lights on? Do you love the idea of pressing a button and setting your dining room to "entertain" mode? Do you have kids who always leave the lights on in some corner of the house when you go to bed? Would you love to be able to turn every light in the house off from a bedside button? These are personality and lifestyle questions that no one can answer for you. Some people love the idea of home automation, others hate the idea of "yet another computer" in their home. These are factors only you can answer.
For more on dimming systems, consider picking up a copy of Losing Edison for your iPad or Kindle. Or shoot me an email.
This post is a little bit of a diversion from my usual lighting content, but I thought it was relevant enough for my audience that it was worth commenting on here. One quick stat:
Pinterest is now driving more referral traffic on the web than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn — combined. That’s according to Shareaholic’s January 2012 referral trafficreport, which is based on aggregated data from more than 200,000 publishers that reach more than 260 million unique monthly visitors each month.
Yet the knock on Pinterest has been that it's a site for women. Perhaps the it's the slightly feminine UI design or that the heaviest pinners tend to be women, but for whatever reason, the ladies are dominant on Pinterest, at least by reputation. The truth is registered users on Pinterest are 58% female. More importantly, gentlemen if you're interested in visual design, it's time to drop the stigma and start following some pinboards...some quick tips.
You don't have to follow every board someone creates. Take the time to select the boards you might care about i.e. "classic wood furniture" and skip the one's you might not i.e. "cute kittens."
It's Fashion Week - Get over it. At certain points of the year, you're going to see more high fashion than you might be used to, it's OK, it only hurts for a second. Hey you might actually learn something.
Pinterest is not for personal photos. I know you want to drive traffic to the blog post for your big opening night party, but that's what flicker is for...people come to Pinterest to find interesting design elements. Don't abuse it.
Pinterest is an overwhelmingly positive environment. It's not tumblr. So if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. If you have a critique of an image...find a way to positively present it. Remember, every image is something someone created and someone else curated, you wouldn't walk into an artist's show in a gallery and drop f-bombs.
Find your niche - I follow lots of interior designers on Pinterest, because I'm interested in interior design. Find your niche(s) and follow it/them.
Expand your horizons - Pinterest is an amazing way to look into design cultures you're not familiar with...I encourage you to go for it.
Every so often I try to come up with a project that challenges me as a designer that I can share with readers. Here's a new one I want to pursue…I'm calling it "15amps and a Driveway".
First, a little background:
I live in Astoria, NY. My apartment (the first floor of a 2 story attached house) is accessible by a communal driveway behind the house. The driveway has always intrigued me because it's not manicured in anyway. It's paved (barely) but the retaining walls have shifted, the fences are rusty, the trees at one end burst through the concrete. It's real and interesting. I've always thought it would make a great subject for a lighting design.
At the same time, I want to challenge myself a little. So I want to have some limiting factors beyond the subject matter. The first is power….whatever portion of the driveway I light I will only be able to use 15amps…from an outlet in my apartment.
But what about the light sources? Well that's where it gets interesting…I'm looking for samples from any manufacturer willing to ship them. Whether it's that new outdoor LED flood light, or that RGB strip light you've wanted to show off…whatever you've got I'll use. Of course, there are some guidelines…
I'll be working alone. So anything you send should be able to be wielded by one person.
I'm working with 15amps and only 15amps…so low power fixtures and light sources are preferable.
Any samples provided should be complete and working with cord and Edison plug.
If you're fixture requires control gear (and RGB LED for instance) then provide it.
If you send samples…here's what I can promise you:
I will use the gear.
I will write a review of the gear as part of a blog post sharing the photos of the design.
You will be able to comment on the review.
I will send you high-res copies of the photos for your company's use.
Your gear will never be exposed to moisture. (Unless you want it to be…I'm all for proving real-world use)
If you're interested email me or shoot me a message on Twitter.
