Beneath the Surface Blog

Sometimes new and innovative ideas can overwhelm tried and practical applications such that inefficiency becomes standard. The modern use of electric lights and lamps perfectly demonstrates this fact. For the past century, artificial illumination has dominated the way we light our workspaces and homes. Fed up with the humming of florescent lights, skyrocketing electric bills, and pollution of coal-fired power plants, many have turned to sky wells, floor-to-ceiling windows, and internal windowed courtyards to bring in as much natural sunlight from the outside as possible. With this idea in mind, an anonymous German-student submitted an interesting concept, called Daylight, for James Dyson Foundation's 2011 James Dyson Award.

This notion puts a modern twist on a forgotten technology over 3,000 year old, natural reflected light. Metal louvers hang horizontally outside of windows. These adjustable aluminum features block out the harsh sun and direct light into the interior space where ceiling lamps sporting LEDs and reflective panels hang. These interior components feature light sensitive panels that can increase and decrease LED output.  These combine with the natural reflected light to reach pre-set illumination levels and can even match the outside's ambient colors.  Since the design focuses on reflecting daylight and not sunlight directly, it also eliminates hotspots and glare.

Ancient peoples used polished copper plates to illuminate their insides spaces and versions of exterior metal louvers actually hung outside of buildings up until the 20th century before Edison's invention pushed them into the periphery. The idea came to this nameless German student when he or she noticed offices and sporting complexes with drawn shades and blinds on windows to block out the harsh glare of the sun while interior lights and lamps blazed.

With the Dyson Foundation's contest open to entries until August 2nd, we won't know the results for a bit; but by transferring a supposedly antiquated idea into to the modern age, the future for the Daylight concept certainly is bright.

Browse the rest of the innovative entries and vote for your favorite >

Image credits: JamesDysonAward.com

Check out this backlit graffiti wall that GPI provided for Marlite’s GlobalShop Booth! The wall is designed to mimic an urban alleyway, with continuous LED backlighting highlighting the vibrant graffiti graphics.  Graphics were spray painted on optical acrylic panels.  Custom controls animate the panels individually, reinforcing the concept that each panel is a brick in the wall.  The bold animation attracts visitors at the bustling tradeshow.

Above: Boeing interior before re-design

Air travelers might have noticed something different about a plane ride they recently took. The venerable 737, workhorse of many airlines, has been redesigned from nose to tail, including a fresh look inside the cabin. Gone are the boxy overheads and bright yellow incandescent lights. Boeing has replaced these when they designed the new Sky Interior which holds more carry-on bags while increasing headroom. In fact, a person over six feet tall can comfortably stand up in the aisle seats. Redesigned windows that allow more light and improve visibility while keeping the same pane size contribute to the greater sense of openness.

Above: Boeing Sky interior with new and improved lighting design

The most exciting and innovative aspect of the Sky Interior is the new lighting system. Recessed alcoves are populated with super-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that normally project a sky-blue hue. Human eyes primarily rely on blue light, known as "cool colors", in instances where illumination is limited. The blue light sensitive rods of the retina are 100x more receptive to light than the red sensing cones - that's why the world takes on a more bluish hue after the sun goes down. Cool color LEDs allow for more lighting in the cabin while keeping the light less intrusive.

Above: View of new Boeing Sky interior with blue LED lighting

The psychology of color, going back over 92,000 years, has shown that blue also has a calming effect on individuals and will even lower heart rates and body temperatures. Glasgow recently installed blue street lights in certain neighborhoods and experienced decreased reports in crime. This promises to make flying a less unpleasant experience when the passenger in front of you decides to fully recline their seat on a trans-Pacific route.

Above: Airplane interior with variable color scenes

Besides lasting ten times longer than old incandescent bulbs, allowing more illumination with less brightness, and helping soothe passengers stuck on a runway for several hours, these new lights are also programmable with variable colors. Designers envision changing colors to better match that of the outside. As dusk approaches, for instance, the lights could begin showing a bit of a reddish hue, simulating the setting sun, then transition into a more intense blue, adding more indigo as night falls. Conversely, as the sun begins to rise that deep indigo could become more golden to match the morning rays peeking over the horizon eventually becoming the normal blue as the day unfolds. On the opposite spectrum (literally), airlines could flood the cabin with reddish light as the plane reaches the jetway to infuse energy into lethargic passengers that have spent several hours sitting in the same position. As well, during dining services a bit of warmer red light would enhance the appeal of airline food (bad news for stand-up comics)!

These cabin modifications take their cues from the work Boeing has been doing on their upcoming 787 Dreamliner which is expected to begin ferrying passengers in the third quarter of 2011. Numerous airlines and suppliers such as flydubai, United Continental, Lion Air, Virgin, GOL, and Air China have taken deliveries for this transcontinental version of the 737. With GPI's client list spanning the globe, frequent flyer miles really rack up and we definitely appreciate Boeing for embracing lighting technology to make air travel less stressful and more enjoyable.

Image credits: Wired, Boeing Blogs, Malaysian Wings

While the exterior of building has been criticized with terms that approximate “foreign spaceship”, the interior of the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel in London employs deep textures and artistic expression. From carpet inscribed with poetry verses to high-end artwork, understated luxury abounds. But what really take center stage in this interior are the illuminated feature walls at the main entry staircase.

Designed to augment the journey through the hotel entrance with a translucent boundary, Digital Space created these massively scaled backlit walls. Framing the main staircase, the walls sweep hotel visitors from the ground floor entrance up into the first level reception area. The woven plastic mesh panels with dimensional texture provide a tactile surface with just the right amount of transparency for the visual and lighting effects the designer envisioned. LED light fixtures graze the inner surface of the wall to illuminate the mesh, changing shades of color as the day progresses.

With the unique surface choice, even continuous backlighting, and controllable color schemes, the custom illuminated wall contributes a boutique feel to this large contemporary hotel. Can't wait to get our hands on a sample of the lovely mesh and have some fun with backlighting in our Design Lab...!

Image credits: Frame Mag

Contact closures, relays, Cue servers, DMX decoder units, din rails… if you’re a conceptual designer, you’re probably not too interested in what those mean, but when implemented through a thoughtful electrical engineering process, these items can add a whole new element of fluctuation to your spaces.

Imagine synchronizing the vertical movement of an elevator with a lighting effect that “speaks” to the waiting patrons. At the renovation of 1828 L Street in Washington, D.C., lighting designers MCLA and architects DEP Designs envisioned a full scale elevator lantern that capitalized on the dynamics of time and movement (fitting for an elevator lobby). The elevator call lanterns take on a modern architecture with full height panels of backlit glass. Goodbye, standard call buttons!

Standard Elevator Indicator Buttons - small scale, appear "additive" to the architecture (Image Credit: robinsonsmay) 

Re-designed Backlit Lanterns - large scale, integral to the architecture

The design intent was to have the elevator lanterns illuminated at a dim level at all times. When the elevators descend to the main lobby at the first floor, the lanterns slowly brighten up to 100%, signifying the arrival of the elevator cab.  Pretty cool visual reinforcement of movement!

Custom controls by GPI sync the elevator control system with our Flat-Lite™ LED panels

Only one of the elevators descends to the basement; the designers wanted the lantern at this elevator to illuminate in a red color. At this area, GPI designed a dual-illumination red and white LED panel to backlight the glass. The colored and white settings were engineered to be controlled independently. When the cab is above ground, the lantern remains white like the others. The relay to the red LED string only fires when the elevator drops to the basement level, at which time the LED panel changes to its red hue.

Flat-Lite™ LED panel on white and red settings

This is just one job that goes to show the value of integration when it comes to backlit features. As you’ll often hear us advocate, to have a truly well-executed backlit feature, it’s much more about the LED panels themselves. In this case, the LED panels were properly designed to both seamlessly illuminate the surface and interface with the existing elevator control system, for a lighting effect that strengthens the architecture. The challenges of the project were perfectly suited for our team and we’re looking forward to publishing the final installation photographs soon!

The Cienna Ultralounge in NYC- This project piqued our interest for several reasons – highly conceptual design, sophisticated use of colored LED lighting, and innovative materiality.

Designer Antonio Di Oronzo of Bluarch envisioned the ceiling as a cocoon-like element with soft, tactile, silky forms. To create this aesthetic, nearly 90,000 illuminated acrylic strands are suspended in amoeba-like shapes on the ceiling plane. The LED acrylic strands can shift in relation to the club music. One can imagine the sense of encapsulation is further enforced when the strands are slowly and mysteriously pulsing.

Given that RGB backlighting can sometimes get a bad rap –in this project, how were the various design elements executed to make the final result so successful?

Image Credit: BlueArch, FrameMag

Designers, has your education and (hopefully subsequent) career left you completely terrified to implement colors other than white? Sure, sleek white will always be the go-to minimalist choice, but wouldn’t it be nice to stir things up once in awhile?

Proving that colored light need not only be relegated to Vegas casinos, here are some well-executed displays of multicolor architectural lighting designs to mix up the visual palette. (If only to expand our imaginations… we’re not expecting a complete paradigm shift here.)

Multicolor lighting systems tend to have a bad reputation for appearing tacky, but can actually provide great flexibility in color schemes for interiors. With adjustable color in your backlit features, the surfaces merely provide the intended texture and sheen, with the light as the dynamic variable. Unleashing unlimited opportunities to illuminate the surface in different hues or color cycles, you and your building owner can then select your favorite color settings on-site, react to ambient conditions, or change colors on special occasions.  With the flick of a switch, the entire ambiance of space can shift.

1.  Nordwesthaus building designed by Baumschlager Eberle

In this screened facade, lighting changes are reflected on both the interior and exterior surfaces. Cool lighting renders the space in an icy tone.

2.  Marriott Pulse Bar building designed by TVS Interiors

A soaring feature by 3form consisting of LED backlit resin panels that shift color as the day progresses, tracking the programmatic changes in the hotel over the course of a day.

3.  Galleria Department Store designed by UNStudio

This custom facade consists of backlit glass discs, each performing as a pixel. The facade takes on a mother of pearl sheen during the day and transforms into a lively colored billboard at night.

-->Does your design sensibility embrace the use of fluctuating color and light? How do our educational, cultural, gender, and workplace contexts affect our manipulation of these elements in design?

Image Credits: DesignTopNews, 3-Form, UNStudio

Cloudy skies bring to mind images of open spaces, soaring objects and unlimited imagination when interpreting their organic forms. Changes in natural cloud patterns occur rather slowly, marking the passage of time over the course of the day. In this project, the form and psychological implications of clouds, altered by a speedier manipulation of time, provide an anchor of connectivity for a busy airport space.

The eCloud (designed by Aaron Koblin, Nik Hafermas, and Dan Goods) is a sculptural installation suspended from the ceiling of the San Jose airport. The animated sculpture, composed of thousands of LCD pixels in laminated plexiglass, interacts with weather data to animate the pixels. With liquid crystal technology and electric switching, each small square panel transforms as an individual pixel in the composition, slowly changing from opaque to transparent according to weather patterns at various airports across the world.

eCLOUD from Dan Goods on Vimeo.

With its sheer scale, the element of time, and manipulation by outside data, the eCloud is an ensemble of surface, technology, controls – an impressive work of art that celebrates both the local specificity and global universality of cloud forms.

In the overview blog post, The 10 Benefits of Lighting Control for Greener, Smarter Building Design, Bill Trammel of the Lighting Control Pros blog outlines the main benefits of implementing lighting control into architectural design.  This blog post provided a great overview of points that can both enlighten designers AND provide relevant data to assist them in convincing their clients (building owners and developers).

Architects and designers probably understand this from multiple angles, many of which Bill Trammel touched upon, but the perceived benefits of lighting control really depends on who's listening, right? Here's GPI's case for implementing controllable lighting systems, in plain language that building owners might connect with:

You wouldn't buy a Mercedes Benz without purchasing the automatic window upgrade, would you?

(Notice we are using the Benz as an example for the owner? If we were talking to you, Ms./Mr. Designer, we would have said "1999 Volvo". Yep, we know you're overworked and underpaid.)

Let's make sure that everyone is satisfied with these lighting levels on-site after all is said and done.

You can quantify this LED fixture with test data all day long, but lighting levels are subjective. Avoid the costly mistake of implementing non-controllable lighting, which results in tearing down finishes to modify or remove fixtures. (Headaches, schedule extension, added cost)

Dimming control provides the opportunity for lighting designers and building owners to "tune" the brightness of fixtures based on many variables: desired brightness levels, ambient lighting conditions, subjective perception. 

During the building walk-through and commissioning process, dimming control will prove to be a crucial tool in fine tuning all of the systems into a harmonious composition.

You like to see your huge building investment pay off over the years, don't you?

As Bill Trammel succinctly put it: "from a purely bottom-line standpoint, dimming reduces monthly overhead costs".  Dimming control reduces energy costs, increases occupant comfort, and can contribute to employee productivity.  Building owners see every project as an investment; quantifying this can help to justify the increased upfront costs.

And last but not least... controllable lighting systems can contribute to LEED certification, and let's face it - LEED is a great marketing/publicity tool for building owners.

--> The bottom line: when your lighting fixture manufacturers have dimming capability available and the budget allows, take them.  Just like when you're caught driving that new Benz (ehh, 1999 Volvo) in a rainstorm, you won't regret purchasing the automatic roll-up window option.