Lessons from Lightfair

Equating architecture to a building’s body, interior design to its clothing and lighting to its mood, Scott Oldner, owner, lighting designer, Scott Oldner Lighting Design (Dallas), explained lighting’s role in design: “It can be mysterious, but it feels so good because of that harmony.” His joint-session with Jill Klores of Essential Light Design Studio (Dallas), “Lighting That Makes You Feel Good,” was just one session at Lightfair, which drew roughly 23,000 attendees June 2-5 to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Exemplifying growing demand for seamless LED fixtures, Acuity Brands (Atlanta) received the Most Innovative Product of the Year award for Open: a lens-free luminaire system using constructive occlusion to diffuse and reflect light from LEDs across an inner arch and down the fixture, producing a soft, even illumination.

“With LED [fixtures], you used to have bugs, dirt and seams that would disrupt the architecture and design,” says Jimalee Beno, vp, Acuity Brands and value stream leader, Peerless Lighting (Berkeley, Calif.). “We thought, how can we create light for a comfortable environment without glare? It’s all about visual comfort.”

Dicon Lighting’s (Richmond, Calif.) Cielux T80 LED track light (Technical Innovation Award) showcased LED advancements – an 80-watt LED with a CRI less than 90 that uses 50 lumens per watt, while Osram’s (Danvers, Mass.)  Traxon Debut (Judges’ Citation Award) touched on interactivity: The intelligent media/LED system projects personalized scenery for dressing rooms.

Though indoor location systems didn’t sweep the awards, several companies showcased the technology which uses special luminaires embedded into a store’s lighting that flash continuous patterns – ones our eyes can’t detect, but our smartphone cameras can. With the retailer’s loyalty app activated, the pattern communicates with the phone through its camera, and among many possibilities, could assist shoppers using “indoor GPS” to find departments or offer coupons in real-time, while retailers gather customer data.

Aside from tech-talk, dialogue focused on lighting as an architectural element. As speaker Nelson Jenkins, principal, Lumen Architecture (New York), noted, “When you have a good collaboration, it’s hard to see where the lighting designer’s work ends and the architect’s begins.”