LEDs are regarded as excellent for effects, but functional lighting is often better supplied by other sources.
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There’s a lot of excitement surrounding LED lighting in modern interior applications. James Boley uncovers the truth behind the industry hype
It doesn’t seem too long ago that LEDs were the sort of thing that you’d find on small electronic devices as a way of letting you know they were on. Now, of course, LEDs have become one of the most talked about technologies in the field of lighting, praised for their flexibility, ability to generate powerful effects, and their energy efficiency.
With the technology behind LEDs advancing and improving on a seemingly daily basis, it can be a challenge to know precisely how useful the apparent future of lighting really can be. “A lot of clients have been sold the idea that LEDs are the dynamic solution to everyone’s problems,” commented Chris Richardson, managing director, Oldham Lighting.
As a result, there appears to be large demand from clients for LEDs to act as a replacement for the current conventional fitting, such as fluorescent tubes and cold cathode lamps, experts say. “If a new lamp comes along, everyone wants to test it at doing everything that every other lamp has done before, rather than just taking it as an envelope of something that’s doing something new and fresh,” said Rod Bastable, designer, Bastable Lighting Services.
Of course, this is a tall demand for any light source and it should seem unlikely that one new piece of technology is able to perform every function dreamed up by lighting designers since the invention of the incandescent lamp over 120 years ago. Nevertheless, like any new form of technology, LEDs bring new functions to the table and new
opportunities for designers.
New and fresh
As a light source in itself, both designers and manufacturers are keen to point out that there is now very much a place for LEDs in modern interior lighting. LEDs have already been used extensively in the Middle East, notably on dynamic, colour changing exteriors for projects such as the Aspire Tower in Qatar by Kevan Shaw Lighting Design.
Richardson noted that the harsh outdoor conditions in the Middle East have caused LEDs to fail in some installations, but that clients in the Middle East should not be put off using them in interiors. “LEDs really do fulfil their greatest potential in interiors. They’ve been used in lots of cases externally in hot or humid environments like the Gulf and they’ve been problematic.
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“If they get it wrong and have a lot of poor quality, and someone buys into that, it’ll ‘black mark’ the product. That’s already happened with external lighting projects,” he explained.
“There are two streams for the application of LEDs; effect lighting and functional lighting,” argued Paul Cassidy, design director, Whitecroft Lighting. In terms of effect lighting, LEDs offer a great deal of flexibility, particularly in terms of colour change.
“We’ve used this successfully in places like retail environments, where you’ve got big shopping malls, and the traditional method of adding colour was cold cathode and filters, but then you’re stuck with one colour,” said Gary Turner, general manager, Fagerhult. “The beauty of LEDs is that in places like bars and restaurants, you can change that colour throughout the night.”
Turner also recommends LEDs as a lighting source for art galleries, given that they do not emit damaging UV light.
He also suggests that LEDs should be used as part of a wider palette of lighting options for a space, both out of financial and aesthetic considerations. “If you try to do a beautiful space with just LEDs, that becomes a real challenge financially.”
LEDs can also be used for particularly challenging installations, where the lamps are required to curve around surfaces. “[With LEDs] we are not limited by the shapes of the traditional light sources,” said Cassidy.
Not so special?
However, designers and manufacturers are guarded against wholesale recommendation of LEDs, in spite of the advantages they can bring. Firstly, LEDs are still an expensive technology, despite advances made in manufacturing over the last few years which have helped bring down the cost.
“Clients come to us asking for LEDs, and it is feasible to put a design together that will exclusively use LEDs. But the cost per square metre is much more than using normally applied products,” warned Turner.
Because of the sheer cost, he recommends using LEDs only for highly specialised applications. “What we find in interiors is [that] people are looking for very smart, discreet, chic lighting. You go into most bars and restaurants and you won’t see a great deal of LED lighting. What you do see is clusters of specialised areas where someone wants to make that area very different and vibrant. LEDs can actually do that. We’re always advising that these are the benefits of LEDs,” he said.
In addition to the initial upfront cost of an LED, anyone planning a more energy efficient lighting design should also pay close attention to whether the LEDs they are specifying actually offer any greater energy efficiency over older, more established technologies. “We worry about LEDs so much that if we’re not careful, we miss the technology that’s around us,” noted Turner.
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FEATURED COMMENT
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