Finalists from Three Countries Compete for GE Edison Award

GE Lighting has announced five finalists for the 27th annual international GE Edison Award competition. This year, lighting design firms involved with the five finalist projects hail from three countries: Germany, Mexico and the United States.

The GE Edison Award competition is open internationally to lighting professionals who creatively employ significant use of GE light sources in a lighting design project completed during the previous year. The finalists for the 27th annual GE Edison Award include:

Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen, Germany
Lighting Design Firm: Licht Kunst Licht AG, Bonn, Germany
Created by Lindemann Architects from Mannheim, a refined glass volume connects the old building with the new construction of the Emil Schumacher Museum. A concrete core forms the heart of the building that contains two large exhibition spaces. The lighting concept for the museum establishes a connecting element for all exhibition areas. A luminous ceiling system provides a sleek and homogeneous response to the various room layouts.

EnBW City in Stuttgart, Germany
Lighting Design Firm: Licht Kunst Licht AG, Bonn, Germany
EnBW, the third largest supplier of power, gas and water in Germany, blended daylight, strong directional downlights, fluorescent washes and lines of light, LED-lit water features and xenon light points into its new headquarter complex, the EnBW City. The lighting design beats strict European regulations for power consumption, while highlighting the building’s best architectural assets.

MUAC University Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City, Mexico
Lighting Design Firm: Lighteam, Gustavo Avilés, S.C., Mexico City, Mexico
The MUAC University Museum of Contemporary Art is the newest and most modern art museum in México City, representing masterful architectural design revealed through a careful composition of advanced daylighting and electric lighting systems. Flexibility, architectural integration and elegance come together in the daytime and nighttime images of this lighting design.

Maki Office Building on the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland
Lighting Design Firm: Licht Kunst Licht AG, Bonn, Germany
The primary design concept for the new office building on the Novartis campus was transparency and spatial flow. A continuous and flexible office space features ceilings sloped at different angles and office floors interlinked by double-height spaces. To stress the open and flowing character, the main lighting objective was to internally illuminate the building by indirectly highlighting the ceiling surfaces. Specially designed luminaires for the open office areas provide a softly uplit space.

1100 First Street NE in Washington, D.C., USA
Lighting Design Firm: George Sexton Associates, Washington, D.C., USA
The lobby for a new mid-rise office tower in the North of Massachusetts Avenue (NoMA) district of Washington, DC was collaboratively developed to exploit light presented as a series of luminous boxes within a glassy modernist field. Lightboxes and a luminous reception desk orient visitors and differentiate the interior spaces.

All winners and qualifying entrants will be invited to an awards ceremony held Tuesday, May 11, 2010, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, the night before LIGHTFAIR begins. During the ceremony, designers who have been designated as winners of Awards of Excellence, Awards of Merit, Awards for Excellence in Environmental Design and Awards for Residential Design will be recognized with personalized plaques acknowledging their lighting design achievements. The identity of the 27th annual GE Edison Award Winner will remain confidential until announced at the awards ceremony. The winner will receive a personalized Steuben crystal trophy and continued publicity throughout the following year. A distinctive plaque will also be presented to the owner of the winning installation.