Luma Investments Limited, a Singapore holding company, and Luxim Corporation of Sunnyvale, California, a manufacturer of light-emitting plasma (LEP) products, recently announced a definitive merger agreement, creating a single energy-efficient lighting company.
LIGHTFAIR produced this short video with highlights of the first day of the show, which is worth a watch if you’ve never attended or exhibited. It really was a good one, and like one of the attendees remarked, it’s really changed over the years, just like everything’s changing in lighting.
Soraa’s SORAA SNAP System is a magnetic-attach LED lamp and accessory system for lighting, coupling a high-output SORAA PREMIUM 2 or VIVID 2 LED MR16 10° lamp with a prismatic lens and an innovative array of magnetic filter and lens attachments, which allows users to customize the light directly on lamps, rather than on fixtures. I had the pleasure of seeing the product at LIGHTFAIR and thought it was one of the most innovative products at the show.
Eric Kim, Soraa’s CEO, calls SORAA SNAP the “Swiss Army Knife” of lighting. The self-centering magnetic lamp and accessory interconnect system gives users everything they need in one product, including multiple distributions and color temperatures.
The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) recently announced a call for submissions to the 2013 IES Progress Report. This program offers organizations in lighting an opportunity to present important new products, research, publications, and design tools. All lighting products must be introduced commercially and all research, publications and design tools must be completed between August 1, 2012 and July 31, 2013.
Submissions are open May 17 through July 19, 2013. There is a $50 processing fee for each submission through June 29; $75 thereafter. Submissions will be reviewed by the IES Progress Committee.
Accepted submittals will be presented live at the 2013 IES Annual Conference in Huntington Beach, CA, October 27 – 29. The acceptances will also be published in LD+A magazine, presented at IES Section meetings and posted throughout the year on the IES website. The 2013 Progress Report Selection seal can be used in marketing efforts only by those receiving a notice of acceptance.
Click here for more information or to enter a submission.
The LFI Innovation Awards honors industry innovations for lighting-related products and designs introduced in the past 12 months. Each product was judged by an independent panel of renowned lighting professionals. I was pleased to help out again this year Mark Roush, who does a herculean labor producing the event for LIGHTFAIR, by editing the product submissions in several categories.
Most Innovative Product of the Year:
Boldplay by Philips Lighting, an architectural LED luminaire delivering extraordinary performance and maximum energy savings.
Technical Innovation Award:
Moldable Silicones by Dow Corning, which enable innovative and flexible lighting designs.
Design Excellence Award:
Light Sheet by Cooledge Lighting, a new LED lighting system that combines the mechanical, electrical and source together into a flexible sheet of light.
Judge’s Citation Award:
Hue personal wireless lighting by Philips Lighting, a seamless system that is secure and easy to experience.
See all of the entries and category winners here.
A proposed guideline that will establish a uniform procedure for transmitting design, construction, testing and operational information to building owners and operators is open for public comment.
ASHRAE Standard 202P, Commissioning Process for Buildings and Systems and other ASHRAE guidelines on commissioning require development of a systems manual, as do several other standards and energy- and sustainability-related codes. However, no document or guideline outlines how to assemble a systems manual to current requirements.
To address this need, Guideline 1.4P, The Systems Manual for Facilities, provides procedures for producing a systems manual as a resource for training, operations, maintenance and upgrading of facilities. The guideline applies to information from planning, commissioning process, design, construction, testing and training activities and operations planning for new, renovated and existing facilities, equipment and assemblies.
It’s going to cover lighting.
The proposed guideline is open for an advisory public review until June 2, 2013. Click here to read the draft guideline or to submit comments.
Ten award winners representing architectural lighting design projects from nine countries—the most diverse group of projects in recent memory—comprise the winners of the 30th Annual International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) International Lighting Design Awards.
Of the ten projects recognized, one entry earned a Special Citation, six earned Awards of Merit and three earned Awards of Excellence.
Accepting the Radiance Award for Excellence in Lighting Design was Gerd Pfarré of Pfarré Lighting Design for the Hafencity-University Subway Station in Hamburg, Germany. It’s a beautiful project and worthy of this prestigious recognition.
Suspended high above the HafenCity-University U4 subway platform are 12 “shipping containers” designed to the exact dimensions of those used in the HafenCity district’s former life as a global shipping center. Instead of tangible goods, these containers designed by pfarré lighting design contain light.
“There are so many elements I love about this project,” one IALD International Lighting Design Awards judge praised of the project. “Art as functional light, elegant programming, seamless integration and expression of transportation.”
HafenCity Hamburg is a large-scale rebuilding project that aims to convert the city’s free port district into offices, hotels, shops, official buildings and residential space. With decreased economic importance of free ports in the European Union, the Hamburg free port was reduced in size in 2003, allowing 2.2km2 of space to be rezoned as a new section of the city center in 2007.
In order to connect the new HafenCity planning project with Hamburg’s already-established public transportation system, construction began on the U4 metro line addition to the Hamburg U-Bahn. Running in parallel to the U2 from Billstedt to Jungfernstieg, the U4 then branches off toward the city’s new development project and the U4’s current terminus at HafenCity-University Station.
The design of Hamburg’s Hafencity-University station was inspired by the iridescent colors sunlight creates on brick façades in the HafenCity development project over the course of a day, as well as the steel ship hulls filled with ocean freight containers you could find in the port in its heyday. Each “container” developed for the HafenCity-University station weighs 6 tons and incorporates 260 RGB-LEDs.
Preset scenes can be used for day and night, when a train is approaching, or simply to create a visual sensation while waiting. The scenes can be static or dynamic, depending on the needs of the moment.
“This project teaches a lesson in how to use light to make a space functional, safe, fun and just plain awesome,” another judge commented on the project.
Clad with 6500m2 of treated steel sheets, the station’s walls and ceiling become enormous reflective surfaces on which the light from the shipping containers splay. The smooth color reflections create an effective and imposing contrast to the evenly distributed warm white T5 light integrated into each container’s bottom portion to illuminate the 200m platform.
“A light sculpture is […] so unexpected at a railway station,” another judge commented. “It is overwhelming and magical.”
After five years of construction, the U4 and its HafenCity-University stop began servicing the area in November 2012. The addition to Hamburg’s public transportation system was an immediate benefit to the 9,000 employees and 2,000 residents of HafenCity. When the project is completed, up to 35,000 people are expected to use the line every day.
See all of this year’s winners here.
At LIGHTFAIR, I had the pleasure of seeing a new LED lighting system demonstrated at the Acuity booth. Using wall-recessed LED luminaires, the system, called Aera, and which will be offered by Winona within 12 months, is a unique combination of indirect ambient illumination and luminous presentations to provide an engaging, customizable visual experience.
It’s without a doubt one of the coolest products I saw at the show.
Aera features a discreetly hidden white light engine for high performance indirect, ambient illumination that can serve as an alternative to overhead luminaires. Intended to be mounted above eye level, the Aera LED lighting system is suggestive of the sky as viewed through a transom window, clerestory or glass block.
Aera LED luminaires have three control functions to manage the white ambient light independently from the upper and lower controls so as to paint the aperture with bold or subtle colors. It is compliant with industry standard DMX and RDM protocols for seamless integration with DMX controllers. With the combined control functions, the Aera LED lighting system represents a powerful platform for personal and architectural expression where users can select from hundreds of preset appearances, or create their own custom color palettes.
Buoyed by rising home prices throughout much of the nation, both single-family and multifamily housing starts are expected to post double-digit gains over last year in 2013. However, headwinds continue to hold back even stronger growth as the housing recovery evolves, according to economists at NAHB’s Spring 2013 Construction Forecast Conference Webinar.
“The broadening housing expansion is evidenced by the NAHB/First American Improving Markets Index, which now lists 273 metros areas out of a universe of 361, or three-quarters of the metropolitan areas in the U.S.,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.
The recent surge is almost all due to improvements in house prices across a broader number of markets, he added. Home price increases became more solid and consistent in 2012, and the latest data shows a nearly 6 percent annual rate of home price appreciation on a national basis.
Growth in the housing sector is rising at a much faster pace than the overall economy during this phase of the recovery. The residential fixed investment component of GDP was up 17.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 whereas total economic output only registered a 0.4 percent gain.
As demand for housing gradually picks up steam, supply chains for building materials, developed lots and skilled workers will take some time to re-establish themselves in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, builders are feeling pinched by rising costs of key building components (prices of gypsum, softwood lumber and concrete are all above 90 percent of their housing boom peak), which is causing home construction costs to rise at a faster pace than appraised values, said Crowe.
Moreover, ongoing difficulties in obtaining construction credit, overly restrictive mortgage lending rules and uncertainty in Washington regarding the future of housing financial regulations and housing tax incentives, including the mortgage interest deduction and Low Income Housing Tax Credit, threaten to dampen consumer confidence and future housing demand.
Setting the 2000 to 2003 period before the housing boom as a time of normal residential building production, Crowe said that residential remodeling has returned to previously normal levels of the early 2000s and that remodeling activity is expected to register a 2.2 percent gain this year over 2012.
Meanwhile, NAHB’s Multifamily Production Index, a leading indicator for the multifamily market, has jumped 38 points in the past four years and now stands at 54. For the past three quarters, the index has been above the critical tipping point of 50, where a reading of 50 means that an equal number of builders view conditions in the multifamily market as good and bad.
Multifamily starts are expected to rise to 334,000 units in 2013, up 35 percent from last year’s 247,000 level, bringing production back to the baseline level that is needed to keep the supply in balance with demand. Multifamily starts are anticipated to rise an additional 5 percent next year to 349,000 units.
The single-family market, which must make up the most ground to return to its 2000-2003 level of normal production (1.3 million units), continues to make steady gains. NAHB is forecasting 672,000 single-family housing starts in 2013, up 23 percent from the 534,000 units recorded last year. Single-family production is expected to rise an additional 28 percent in 2014, to 858,000 units.
Fed to the Rescue
Taking a more bullish approach to the housing and economic recovery, Maury Harris, managing director and chief economist for the Americas for UBS, expects housing starts to total 1.1 million units this year (700,000 single-family and 400,000 multifamily) and 1.35 million units (900,000 single-family and 450,000 multifamily) in 2014.
“My view is that monetary policy is more important than fiscal policy,” Harris said, noting that the sequester will cut about $85 billion in spending out of the economy this year while the Federal Reserve’s monetary expansion policy is pumping $85 billion into the economy every month.
“As the Fed buys securities and pumps reserves into the banking system, this is easing lending standards and that will help job growth,” he added.
Harris expects unemployment to fall to 7.5 percent at the end of this year and 6.7 percent at the end of 2014.
With job formation a critical variable affecting household formation, Harris expects 1.1 million new households to form this year and an average of 1.3 million new household formations annually over the next three years.
During the housing downturn, new household formations plummeted to 500,000 annually. As housing and the economy recover, there is a large pent-up demand for housing. Harris said that the household gap, which is the difference between potential and actual household formation, is about 2 percent of potential households or about 2 million.
“The bottom line: we’re reasonably optimistic about the economy,” Harris said. “The public doesn’t sufficiently appreciate all the good that the Fed is doing.”
Conditions Vary by State
Now that the boom and bust carnage is over, a major development on the housing front is that housing markets are reconnecting to their underlying economies, according to Robert Denk, NAHB’s assistant vice president for forecasting and analysis.
“The housing market is now being driven by local economic fundamentals,” said Denk. “Energy states and those driven by agricultural commodities are seeing their housing markets turn around the fastest.”
California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, which fell the farthest during the housing downturn, bottoming out at 10 to 20 percent of normal production, are showing progress in making a comeback. Home prices in many of these markets are returning to normal and near-normal levels, thanks in part to foreclosure rates that have eased significantly since hitting their peak in 2009.
“While these former bubble states still have a long way to go to get back to normal, they have been replaced by the industrial Midwest, which is facing weakness in manufacturing, as the laggard in the recovery,” said Denk.
Led by North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana and Louisiana, the energy producing states are the first states projected to return to normal production levels by the end of next year, Denk said. Iowa, a farm belt state supported by agricultural commodities, is also approaching a faster return to normal conditions.
In another way of looking at the long road back to normal, by the end of 2014, the top 20 percent of states will be at or above 87 percent of normal production, compared to the bottom 20 percent, which will still be below 60 percent.
This video describes using the iPad to create interesting light paintings.
Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from mcgarrybowen uk on Vimeo.
