LIGHTING DESIGNER AS EDUCATOR Our role now includes educating the clients and sometimes the designers on how energy legislation will affect the project. Clients imagine a new energy-efficient building will not cost more on account of its energy efficiency. This is rarely the case. 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. In a corporate office project, we were able to satisfy the client’s desire to illuminate the dark wood walls used throughout with 20 PAR20 metal halide wallwashers, but they had to accept that they could not be on the dimming system, and as a result there would be a start-up time for the lamps.
For commercial clients, restroom designs often provoke the most discussion. Clients want these areas to be bright, inviting, and perhaps even residential in character, however, these spaces are inefficient and at 0.9 watts per square foot, we no longer can give the client what they are used to, an energy consumption that used to allow for 1.5 watts per square foot. Corridor spaces are even more difficult because they are long narrow spaces with low ceilings. The new codes, particularly ASHRAE 90.1, allow only .5 watts per square foot with only one extra watt per square foot permitted for decorative fixtures or art on the wall. Lighting corridors is still achievable, but there is an ongoing process of readjustment of expectations by both the client and even of ourselves as designers.
The reality of practice today is that the lighting designer’s options are more limited. Modern masterpieces that we love, such as the Seagram building in New York City with its illuminated ceilings at the perimeter offices on every floor, are today unobtainable if not for reasons of energy consumption, then for cost. I frequently receive conceptual renderings from architects showing coves, glowing ceilings and wall planes, but even with LEDs it often is impossible to create the lighting effect that the architect envisions. The code only allows for so many watts. Other times the geometry of the architecture makes it difficult to light the space within the confines of the codes. If the lobby, for example is a double height space—30 or 40 feet high—you are not even allowed a fraction of the energy that you would have consumed had the floors been filled in with useable space. Another challenge we frequently face is when the architectural ceiling grid requires a tight spacing of the light fixtures, which will in turn exceed the watts allowance, but a wider spacing will compromise the lighting design.
CONCLUSION As lighting designers we are in a transition period. Often difficult to find the balance between design and codes, we face what I call the “unintended consequences of good intentions.” Available technology, both traditional sources and solid-state lighting (although offering great promise) is either still not energy-efficient enough, too expensive, or lacks the subtleties that we have with incandescent sources. Even though there are successful lighting design solutions that exemplify and justify the codes, these solutions do not speak to the many styles and spaces found in architecture today. At this point we are waiting for the review process, technology, and the price of these new technologies to catch up with our needs so that once again the only limitations of design are style and budget.
Throughout her career, Ms. Bettridge has collaborated with highly esteemed architects on award-winning national and international work, which encompasses a broad range of types and styles. She has been honored with multiple Lumen, IALD, and GE Awards, as well as this publication’s own A|L Light & Architecture Design Awards. Ms. Bettridge is a professional member and former secretary of the International Association of Lighting Designers, and has served on the Board of Managers and the Richard Kelly Scholarship Committee of the New York Section of the Illuminating Engineering Society. A graduate of Barnard College, Ms. Bettridge studied at Parsons The New School for Design and the Open Atelier of Design, which she helped found. She also has taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons The New School for Design.