Laws, Standards & Codes OH MY!

I will be presenting at the next Illuminating Engineering Society program in Cleveland held on February 17, 2010 at 11:45 at Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Cleveland.

The presentation is Laws, Standards and Codes OH MY! These are current code topics that everyone in the lighting industry should be aware of when creating, supporting or supplying for a lighting design. For more information on the program, see the February Lumen Press.

Universal Design Living Laboratory

image from:  www.udll.com

Last year I was approached with a rare opportunity to be part of a very unique team for the Universal Design Living Laboratory.  

What makes the project unique is that is being built from the ground up with the facets of universal design as the main unifying factor for all disciplines involved.  Not only that, but, it is also going to be a “living laboratory”, meaning open for guests to tour and better understand the goals of universal design.  The project Owners are Rosemarie Rosetti and Mark Leder. Rosemarie suffered a spinal cord injury years ago leaving here in a wheelchair and since then has devoted herself to speaking out to the world on universal design.

As a Lighting Designer, what does Universal Deign mean to me?  Small things that can be a big impact to the ease of someone living there, like locating switches and receptacles within reach of anyone in a wheelchair. Think about the kitchen and how you might reach a light switch located over a standard height/width countertop if you were in a wheelchair.  By keeping the goal of the space in mind, we were able to make small adjustments that will hugely impact the owner.  We made sure light fixtures were fully shielded and won’t provide higher angles of glare to those in seated positions. We specified light switches and dimmers with larger buttons or paddle style switches for ease of use for anyone with limited tactile ability. These are all pretty simple things to accomplish, if you think about it.

Along the basis of more thoughtful design, the Owners then decided to also build green. The house is hoping for a LEED Gold rating .  Within that avenue, we are tackling new ground through the integration of newly developed LED products. I have tested dozens here in my office to determine what will actually work and feel appropriate to a residential living space and meet our energy goals. I had a lot of reasons for looking at LED vs. fluorescent, most were not energy efficiency related, rather lighting quality related. Out goals were to achieve the “instant on” when a switch is turned on, rather than deal with the warm up time of compact fluorescent products. It is also allowing us an opportunity to dim with a fuller dimming curve then the fluorescent would have allowed and hopefully provide a much longer lamp life. Along their energy goals, we are hoping to power the exterior lighting with photovoltaic panels.  It has been a great opportunity to embrace current design trends and see how far we can go.

Ground-breaking was September 23, 2009 and much of the framing is already in place.

I have not been alone working on this project, I wanted to note that, along with Tec, the Universal Design Living Laboratory has over 100 corporate sponsors who see the value this project has to offer the public. If you get a chance, stop by the website at www.udll.com to see the progress made so far and those involved.

IES Progress Report

The January 2009 Lighting Design + Application (LD+A) is available now.  Check out the Progress Report for information of accepted products, publications, and applications of progressive and innovative new technology.  I serve on the committee that reviewed over 250 submissions this year. The committee’s mission is to keep in touch with developments in the art and science of lighting throughout the world.

“The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) is the recognized technical authority on illumination. For over 100 years; its objective has been to communicate information on all aspects of good
lighting practice to its members, to the lighting community, and to consumers, through a variety of programs, publications, and services.”

The Lighting Profession is Speaking Up!

In 2007 Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act. The legislation was created to foster energy independence and encourage production of more efficient technology. Unfortunately, the Act, in effect, also bans the incandescent lamp as we know it. The Act mandates efficiencies that currently have not yet been achievable with an incandescent source by any manufacturers.  The efficiency standards will be phased in starting in 2012 with additional limits set in 2014 and 2020. The legislation promotes the use of less flexible technologies such as self-ballasted compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs. The self-ballasted screw-in CFL’s have a lower color rendering index than the incandescent lamps they are replacing, they are not fully dimmable, many cannot be used in universal operating positions and the optics are completely different - meaning lumen to lumen, they just don’t match up. LED’s are still in their infancy, and the industry has just started to develop standards and testing methods for solid state lighting. LED’s by nature are a point source and are not be the best fit for all general lighting applications. Not to mention the lack of standards for dimming and replacement. By 2012, the EISA standards will be mandatory. New amendments for further efficiency requirements have already been proposed for additional lamp types.

As the country moves toward creating a sound energy policy, more legislation of the lighting industry has occurred. The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) organized the Energy & Sustainability Committee as a method to participate in the process.  “The E & S Committee’s purpose is to provide the expertise of IALD lighting designers to address lighting-related aspects of sustainable design and operations of the built environment. The work of the committee will be tested against the IALD’s definition of Sustainable Lighting Design: Sustainable lighting design meets the qualitative needs of the visual environment with the least impact on the natural environment.”  Committee members serve on the review boards for ASHRAE, IECC and LEED and actively review new legislation in draft forms.  In the past year, the committee has presented a position statement on the Federal Energy Bill - Standards for Energy Efficient Outdoor Lighting; and the IALD has signed a partnership to work with the US Department of Energy to “work cooperatively toward improving the efficient use of energy by lighting equipment and systems”.

As a lighting designer, I do believe, that a lighting system can only be sustainable if it truly satisfies not just energy requirements, but meets the qualitative needs of the occupants and creates harmony with the architecture. Examples of this persist and can be easily seen where office workers have removed the fluorescent tubes from the parabolics overhead. Studies and research in the field of lighting have taught us that better lighting improves worker efficiency and promotes a feeling of positive well-being.  But if the toolkit keeps getting smaller, the challenge to meet our directives of thoughtful and sustainable lighting become more and more difficult.

As a member of the IALD Energy & Sustainability committee, I will be traveling to Washington, DC to meet with the offices of Senate and House members serving on the Energy and Commerce committees and additional subcommittees.  I will be joined by fellow IALD E&S committee member and Lighting Designer, David Ghatan of CM Kling & Associates from Alexandria, VA and the IALD’s Policy Director John Martin.  Our goal is to foster a dialogue between IALD Lighting Designers and our elected officials, to create a partnership with a sustainable future we can all benefit from. Stay tuned for updates from our initial meeting.