Sam Goldman knows what it means to live in the dark. For four years, the young Peace Corps volunteer inhabited a remote rural community in the West African country of Benin. Kerosene lamps were the primary light source in this off-grid village. One night in 2003, a snake came out of the shadows and bit him.
Although LEDs and solid-state lighting (SSL) have made great strides in the lighting marketplace over the past several years, reliable testing of SSL products and data documentation have not kept up. It has taken the lighting industry some time to understand how to develop a set of metrics to properly represent the nuances of this light source in architectural lighting applications.
The good news is that the lighting industry survived last year's financial crisis and the residential sector downturn relatively intact.
There is no doubt that the economy has taken its toll on the design and construction industries over the past year, and with it, its job market.
Manufacturers through their corporate lighting centers and online course offerings provide valuable educational resources at the professional level, reaching an audience well beyond just that of the lighting community.
The lighting education program survey is one of the IALD Education Trust's many initiatives. The 11 programs included in the survey signal the increased awareness of lighting design and the demand for substantive academic programs to educate and train the next generation of lighting design professionals.
Too often clients have old expectations, assuming that we will be able to light the new building the same way we lit the old building, to the same light levels and with the same flexibility.
Enthusiasm for sustainability continues to grow in the lighting industry. Energy efficient fixtures are now standard practice, so manufacturers are looking to other environmentally conscious initiatives as a way to stand out from the crowd.
The MLO is a technically sound model lighting ordinance that communities can adopt, and that is understood industry-wide between lighting designers, engineers, contractors, manufacturers, and community officials.
