How many designers does it take to change the light?

The visual icon of a bright idea, one of the most prevalent modern inventions, Thomas Edison’s lightbulb is long overdue for a makeover.
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Simon Bruenner started out wanting to reconceptualise the traditional chandelier so that light was carried through the crystals. He ended up with the fibreoptic UFO and Scintilla. Using only fibreoptic strands, these lights seem magically suspended. Also using a remote powersource, they can even be used under water.
Like a ballooning jet trail, Makoto Tojiki’s Archimedes’ Dream uses organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs glow due to an electroluminescent layer of organic compounds. Archimedes’s mathematical constant, Pi, runs throughout the lamp’s trail.
Weaving fibreoptic strands, Dutch designers Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe constructed the Bobbin Lace Lamps. There are no lightbulbs on these chandeliers. The light is transported from a remote power box.
Dutch design collective Demakersvan’s Light Wind was inspired by the gently sweeping blades of Dutch windmills. Contemporary functionality and traditional technology combine to mark the landscape with its striking silhouette. The propeller spans more than one meter on each side and with every breeze it stores energy, enough to light an entire evening. Shaped by its function, this self-supporting lamp is made from high-end sail fabric, stainless steel and wood.
The Corona Solar Light, by Shane Kohatsu and Emi Fujita, wins kudos on multiple aspects of sustainable design. Literally a sun flower, not only does it collect solar energy and run on LEDs, but its construction eliminates toxic adhesives and the product is completely recyclable.
Streetlamps draw 38% of the electricity used to generate light. These Lunar Resonant Streetlamps, which wax and wane with each cycle of the moon, are 90 to 95% more efficient and improve visibility of the starry night. Created by the Civil Twilight Collective, sodium bulbs have been replaced with LEDs and teamed with photosensitive cells that adjust the brightness according to atmospheric conditions and moon cycles.
Robin Carpenter’s Ray comprises sandblasted fibreoptic strands weaved between a metal and a clear plastic frame. A small algorithmic program randomly generates paths of light, creating multilayered illuminated lines that change very two seconds, resulting in folding surfaces and distorted volumes. The atmospheric light is generated from a three-watt LED projector.
Steven Haulenbeek takes a radical approach to sustainability with his Zip-Tie Lights. Instead of purchasing the light, owners will purchase an illustrated instruction manual and then collect the waste material and construct it themselves, neutralising the environmental impact of excessive mass production. “My idea was that time and effort on the part of the owner would replace the excessive cost commonlyassociated with purchasing quality home accessories,” he says.
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The standard incandescent lightbulb has seen little to no innovation in almost a century. While most people will credit Thomas Edison with inventing the lightbulb, it was in fact Sir Thomas Davy who created the first in 1802. Edison was the guy who made the lightbulb practical with the first long-lasting filament in 1880. The last landmark upgrade of the lightbulb was in 1910 with William David Coolidge’s tungsten filament.

Yet, sustainability aside, the design efficiency of a light that emits 95% of its energy as heat, not light – its primary purpose – is low. From a sustainability point of view, this is a waste of energy and wastes even more energy by increasing the need for air-conditioning. Further, the bulbs are not recyclable and last only 750 to 1 000 hours.

The first serious competitor to the standard incandescent lightbulb, from a sustainability point of view, is the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL). We’ve heard all about it: it’s more expensive but uses a third of the energy and lasts up to 10 times longer. Only 30% of energy is emitted in heat. It is claimed that the lifetime of a CFL lightbulb saves half a ton of CO2, compared to an incandescent lightbulb. And, although few people know this, CFLs are recyclable.

It seems like a good option, and certainly the most affordable for now. So good, in fact, that its increasing prevalence has led to a number of countries considering outlawing the incandescent lightbulb. Nonetheless, let’s not get stuck with the CFL for the next 100 years!

Luckily, competitors are already surfacing. Still mainly the reserve for torches and on the obscurer side of the market due to price, LEDs last 10 times longer than even CFLs and 100 times longer than incandescent lightbulbs. Further, they use about a half of the energy of a CFL and produce very little heat.

The fact that LEDs provide directional light rather than the dispersed light of CFLs and incandescent lightbulbs has been levelled as a criticism. However, when used in outside lighting, directional lighting reduces light pollution, making the night sky and stars more visible. Further, teaming LEDs with various lenses and clustering formations achieves adequate levels of dispersion.

Still, why use electricity at all? With an input power of 7.5W, using solar-energy-driven power to light your house has become a tangible reality. Several LEDs can operate day and night off energy collected by a small solar panel.

It’s hard to think of someone finding fault with using renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power – especially when teamed with energy efficient LEDs. However, there is an improvement on solar energy, at least during the day. Why use solar energy to produce electricity that then creates light when you can use the sun’s light in the first place?

With fibreoptic lighting systems, sunlight can be captured and directed throughout houses and office buildings. Besides the obvious green benefit, the psychological benefits of being in touch with the time of day outside have also been recorded. Further, the uncomfortable infrared and damaging ultraviolet rays are filtered out. On the other hand, there are currently experiments being conducted into filtering everything except the warming infrared light to create fibreoptic cooking and heating utensils.

Overcast days and moonlit nights may leave one in the dark with this system. However, using the same fibreoptic system that captures sunlight, a single-source light can illuminate your entire building. Teamed with a photosensitive reader, the light will automatically brighten or dim to compensate for the amount of natural light available.

Fibreoptic lighting system or not, maximising the usage of natural light is often overlooked and instead flooded out by a ubiquitous artificial glow. The psychological and health drawbacks of this are chronicled widely. By designing the light usage appropriate to the space, not only can you use fewer lightbulbs but improve the general wellbeing.

For instance, lighting ceilings makes rooms look taller and lighting walls makes rooms look bigger. By lighting architectural details and artworks, the visual variety of light can keep eyes (and people) interested and awake, although strong contrasts wear out the eye. Appropriate light shades can disperse or focus the light – consider a lounge as opposed to a study.

It would be counterproductive to sheath that new energy-efficient lightbulb in a vinyl lamp cover. After designing the space, choose a lamp cover that was produced in an energy efficient manner; made out of appropriate materials – be that re-used, recycled or sustainable; and can be recycled at the end of its lifespan. The light-years matter too – buy local products to reduce the amount of transport involved.

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