Peter Boyce, former head of human factors at the Lighting Research Center, recently contributed a very interesting article to LD+A. In his article, Boyce objects to vague claims the lighting industry makes concerning lighting’s impact on productivity and health. These claims, he says, tend to vanish when faced with demands for hard supporting evidence. He [...]

The United Nations has designated 2015 the “year of light and light-based technologies.” How’s that for recognition of the value of lighting? This year, more than 100 organizations in 85 countries will celebrate light, focusing on natural, scientific and cultural themes. Included is a celebration of light-based technologies, from lighting to lasers, and their impact [...]

New York Governor Cuomo recently signed into law the “Healthy, Safe and Energy Efficient Outdoor Lighting Act,” which establishes requirements for outdoor lighting installed by state agencies. The bill requires the use of properly shielded luminaires to prevent unnecessary up- and side-lighting, thereby reducing light trespass and sky glow. The bill also states that installations [...]

In a press release, lighting artist Bentley Meeker, president of Bentley Meeker Lighting Staging, Inc., contends what we don’t understand about light is affecting our health. He says: “LEDs and fluorescent are the same light from a spectral standpoint. Daylight and halogen (or incandescent) light are similar in spectral properties. And daylight and firelight are [...]

Therapeutic lighting can be a prescription for better health, especially for seniors with dementia. Now, more and more-effective products are needed to implement the highly positive research results achieved to date. So says a panel of therapeutic-lighting experts assembled by the National Lighting Bureau and the Edison Report. Panelists pointed out that some of the [...]

Headed by the continued strength in the multi-family residential market and the emerging growth for institutional projects, demand for design services continues to be healthy as exhibited in the latest Architecture Billings Index (ABI). As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lead time between architecture [...]

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Bailey, LC, LEED AP BD+C, DDI, MIES, Director, Lighting Solutions Center, Hubbell Lighting, for an article I’m writing for TED Magazine about how solid-state lighting is impacting luminaire design. I’m happy to share it with you here. DiLouie: How would you characterize demand for LED luminaires in [...]

USAI Lighting’s Color Select is a proprietary LED technology that offers a wide range of tunable white light for the architectural lighting market, with independent control of color temperature and intensity. Available in USAI’s BeveLED 2.0 luminaires, it can be adjusted from a candlelight-like 2200K to a 6000K that’s comparable to bright daylight, and from [...]

In what is surely a sign of the times, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) recently announced the new ASC 137 Lighting Systems Committee. This committee has received approval from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Executive Standards Council as an Accredited Standards Committee (ASC). This approval is the culmination of a multimonth process and [...]