Sustainability pre convention meeting at PLDC

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The daylight and building component award 2011

Interview with the French architects Lacaton&Vassal that have been awarded the 2011 Daylight and Building Component Award. The annual award, given by the VELUX and VILLUM Foundations  is a recognition of Lacaton & Vassal’s many years of dedication to working with daylight.
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal  are principals in Lacaton & Vassal, an architecture firm they started together in 1987. Their designs balance aspects of daylight quality, energy consumption and low-budget economy in a humanistic and aesthetically convincing manner.
The practice has transformed a number of social housing developments in France, where one of their guiding principles is that 90 percent of what is required for most projects is already available on site. Demolition of social housing, they maintain, is not an environmentally friendly option regardless of how green the replacement building may be.
Lacaton and Vassal are inspired by buildings with large open spaces: hangars, warehouses, large greenhouses and supermarkets. In these structures they have found new ways to use standard construction systems to transform older buildings. By bringing more light into the buildings, removing as many walls as possible, creating better acoustics and using glass as an extra facade on the building, they have succeeded in transforming both private and large public projects.

The PLDA Statement on Sustainability

A new official version of the  PLDA Statement  on Sustainability is  here available. The first version was posted in April 2011 by Kevan Shaw.

PLDA Statement on Sustainability

Oil platforms lighting endanger birds

Here an interesting article explains how artificial light affects the natural system in a very incisive way and underlines once again the importance to fix regulations on this problem.

A conservation group urges BP to make lighting changes on its Gulf of Mexico oil platforms. It says the fixes are needed to save thousands of migrating birds.White lights on oil and gas platforms cause an estimated 200,000 bird deaths per year because migrating songbirds are drawn to the lights then become disoriented and exhausted as they circle the platforms, a release from the American Bird Conservancy said Friday.Some birds crash into the platform or fall into the ocean from exhaustion and others land on the platform where there is no food or drinking water.When finally able to leave, they can be in a weakened state and unable to make landfall or are more vulnerable to predation, the ABC said.”We are talking about simple fixes to existing platform lighting,” said Michael Fry, ABC director of conservation advocacy.”We need to replace both white and red lights with commercially available green lights, shield the lights from above and reduce the duration of nighttime lighting during bird migration periods,” he said.”Safety concerns can be managed within the framework of these changes,” Fry said.Other countries, such as the Netherlands, have instituted bird-friendly lighting on oil and gas platforms off their coasts, the ABC said. read more

Final version!

Download here LED Specification guide 2011

Design meets sustainability

Strolling around the Milan Salone I run into a delicate fluttering of light. Trough a clever use of LEDs, these lamps provide a sustainable use of energy but also drive to a individual light modulation. Telling stories of Japanese fireflies that can no longer see each other because of artificial lighting of our nights, this young designer decided to put her creativity to the conception of a low lamp which follows the “right lamp for right task” philosophy, encouraging  a responsible use of light.

“As a child, I loved the magic of the night in the countryside. A firefly emitted a delicate glow, creating a spiral of light and fadinglines across the darkening sky. Over time, our street corners became harshly bright. The canvas of darkness that allowed the firefly to paint with light is no longer.Male and female fireflies can no longer see each others’ glow.Their eternal attraction extinguished. Our ambivalent yet wasteful habits of daily life consume massiveamounts of energy and destroy not only small insects… but nature itself. The lesson is clear, a new consciousness towards energy must inspire amore personal and responsible approach to design. Too much light… endangers our life. The firefly returns as inspiration. Introducing a personalized light in whichyou can choose its size and brightness according to your need. Our nightscan be beautiful again while being responsible for the energy we share.”

Lighting tecniques and circadian systems

New seminar organized  by  the  ILP looking to lihgt influence on circadian systems.  the events is available for members and non members, you can book here your place: www.theilp-events.org.uk

JULY 6 2011 16 Brewhouse Yard, Clerkenwell,London

download PDF Joined Up Lighting Event

How do we live without the night?

The City Dark, a  documentary film about light pollution by Ian Cheney, premiered at the Austin music festival South by Southwest(SXSW) in March. This film,takes advange of the poetic force to lead us to some topical issues related to light pollution and, as a consequence, to outdoor lightingh design.What do we lose when we lost the night?

http://www.thecitydark.com/

CityDark2011

Lectures at IUAV University in Venice

Recent scientific discoveries have unlocked the life sustaining interconnection of environmental light and natural daylight for our human health and survival. Examining the daylight/human health/light connection from an energy efficiency perspective will enable attendees to integrate a valued skill set into every project while thoroughly embracing sustainable design.

With, clear cut, easy to understand anatomical and neurological references, audiences will be enlightened to cutting-edge, evidence based research investigating how and why built environmental light and natural daylight is now proving to be a major player in all things human including sleep, breast cancer, obesity and heart disease.  A leader in the emerging field of Epigenetic Design, Deborah Burnett will enlighten participants to the unique contribution environmental light has on genetic expression, as well as, physiological and behavioral aspects of human life including cognition, productivity, performance, and reproduction.

Encompassing all areas of daylighting technologies including views, lighting controls and site selection, James Benya, an internationally recognized daylighting authority and accomplished lighting designer, will instruct audiences how to incorporate daylight modeling and real world application methodologies proving to contribute to a low carbon, highly efficient building envelope into every project.

Coupled together, the two presenters will provide audiences with a greater understanding of how the combination of light, health and energy efficiency will help to further expand and clarify the importance of modern daylighting practices and advanced lighting technologies in the upcoming decade and years beyond.

Oganized by VIA Education Concepts and Programmes and IUAV University

Guidelines for Specification of LED Lighting Products 2011

Here is the second edition of the “Guidelines for Specification of LED Lighting Products 2011″, taking into account new IEC standards and the development of LED technology. They have been produced under the umbrella of the Lighting Liaison Group, which is an informal group representing the major lighting organisations in the UK who have endorsed and added their names to this Guidelines document.

Download here LED Specification guide 2011