Architectural Lighting
Lighting is an integral part of architectural design. It determines the utilitarian and the aesthetic environment as provided by a lighting designer, thus calling for the most careful planning and highest skills. Architectural Lighting slightly overlaps with high end residential lighting and hospitality lighting, as definitions and applications are not always that black-white defined.
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Architectural Lighting Market
The early adopter of LED, architectural lighting, has a LED market share estimated at close to 50 percent (2011). This share is expected to be more than 75 percent by 2016 and close to 90 percent by 2020. The advantages of LED become ever clearer, and it is just a matter of time before conventional light sources fade out.
In addition, the RGB color controllability and emerging total cost of ownership benefits are compelling characteristics of LED in architectural applications. It is leading to a gradual replacement of traditional lighting technologies. Mainly, white LED packages for backlighting are affected by the accelerated fall in price: the pricing for RGB LED packages remained stable over time.
Architectural Lighting Solutions
Typical lighting fixtures are recessed, semi-recessed or track-mounted spotlights, pendant lights, linear lights (wall washers) and circular or square surface mounted fixtures such as downlights and ceiling plates.
Generally, they serve purposes of accent lighting (paintings, displays, objects, …), task lighting (work spaces, kitchen areas, etc.) or ambient lighting (general mood lighting).
Increasingly, we see light and materials merge into large format luminous surfaces, what is also reflected in the custom optics portfolio we fabricate.
3D printed optical plastics greatly enhance architectural lighting solutions. (Picture courtesy of Themefusion – Avada)
3D Printing Optics for Architectural Lighting
At Luximprint, we are delighted to work for a number of (leading) architectural lighting firms in search for fast prototypes for realisation or optimization of their engineering projects, and project series in small numbers. Additive fabrication is an answer to many of the inconveniences faced that appear when using traditional fabrication methods, such as tooling restrictions and design limitations.
Typical lenses we fabricate for them include sheets of micro-optics, diffuser lenses, fresnel lenses, collimator lenses and 3D printed reflectors.
Source(s): McKinsey and Company, ‘Lighting The Way – Perspectives on the Global Lighting Market‘.