November 2009

Check out the month’s stories here. Click here to join the more than 12,000 lighting professionals who receive LightNOW in their in-box every month. Subscription is free, takes moments, and we strictly respect your privacy. There is also an option to subscribe to the Lighting Controls Association’s lightingCONTROL newsletter, which offers a monthly whitepaper about [...]

Guest post by Jim Brodrick, reprinted with permission from Postings: from the desk of Jim Brodrick As many of you already know, DOE is in the process of transferring its ENERGY STAR® responsibilities, for all product areas including solid-state lighting, to the Environmental Protection Agency. In an agreement signed by both agencies on September 30, [...]

Big changes are in the works that will impact future lighting designs by eliminating some of the least-efficient and lowest-cost products from the market, while establishing ambitious new goals for energy codes that may severely limit design choices. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 expanded ballast regulations put into effect by the Department of Energy [...]

Control wiring provides a path for command and status communication between control devices in a lighting and control system and, in many cases, power to the devices as well. Wiring is interrelated with overall lighting control system considerations—such as selection of control system and components, layout and installation practices—and is therefore an important consideration when [...]

Susan Solomon Auerbach, executive vice president – corporate development for Generation Brands was inducted into the American Lighting Association’s (ALA) Lighting Hall of Fame on September 15 at the 2009 ALA Annual Conference. As the granddaughter of Henry Siegel, founder of Sea Gull Lighting, daughter of the late Edwin Solomon and a senior executive of [...]

On October 24, 2009, a monumental lighting art installation, created by American lighting artist James Turrell, was presented to the public at the Wolfsburg Art Museum. The Wolfsburg Project, or “Wolfsburg Ganzfeld Piece” as it has come to be known, is the largest installation ever implemented by Turrell in a museum. Twelve meters high and [...]

In his October editorial, Building Design & Construction Robert Cassidy asked whether commercial real estate is the next bubble, quoting Dan Tishman, CEO of Tishman Construction, who said $3.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans generated in 2007 will be rolling over in the next 5-7 years, and the capacity to refinance these loans is [...]

The outlook for the general economy is improving, but that doesn’t mean good news for construction yet. Total construction in 2009 and 2010 will be down 14% and 5% respectively, according to FMI economist Heather Jones. Click here to download FMI’s Q309 report free. (post updated on December 2)