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If “Those lamps” are what I think they are, they have an internal baffle that reflects light down and brings upward light polution in line with reccomendations from the dark sky association.
I’m sure there a shonky versions without the baffle, but setting aside the light polution factor, there are standards to be followed for light levels in pedestrian areas, and if, as a lighting designer you’re trying to adhere to these standards, the last thing you want is for all your light to be shooting upwards. So choosing the version with the baffle may be nore exspensive in the short term, but you need less fittings, therefore you’re more energy efficiant.
There are many commercially available versions of this kind of fitting that have been developed by companys with far greater resources than you would hava available to work out the photometric curves , etc of such a fitting.
There are also dozens of “sure that’s easy, we’ll just point a light at a sheet of metal” botch versions scatteresd about the place where it is patently obious that no-one involved has payed any attention to required light levels.
You also have to factor into consideration the upwards pointing light pollution from such a fitting, I’m sure if it’s a one off the Dark Sky Association won’t be hunting you down, but it is an increasing problem that most responsible maufaturers take into consideration when designing fittings.
If you would like any help finding an off the shelf solution feel free to mail me.
If you are really intent on a custom job I could work light levels, photometrics etc out for you, but it would cost you, plus you’d still end up having to by the actual luminaire, which is the expensive part anyway. Tho’ it’s not in my nature to turn down work it would be far easier and cheaper for you to pick a fitting already in existance
shame, isn’t it ?
coming from a theatrical background I have the somewhat high and mighty opinion that lighting is, be it internal or external, an art form.
Used at it’s best it should highlight the beauty and detail of a structure, taking full advantage of the contrast between light and darkness afforded by the night.
In my opinion there’s mouch more to it than just lighting it up so people can see it, New aspects of any structure should come alive after dark. A beautiful example I saw recently was in the “style” section of this weeks Sunday Times (Graham, ask your wife/partner where she left it) It’s a pic of the front of the V&A Museum at night, no front facade lighting at all, but every archay and window is lit. It really looks stunning and gives the building a majesty completely different to the one it has during the day.
after the “is kildare gay friendly?” thread, I was a might warey of reading the “ball playing” one :))
(sorry, had to be done)
ooohhh good for pennys, it actually makes my skin crawl when I see a row of fluorescent uplighters/cove lighting where one or two bulbs in the string have blown and not replaced, and don’t get me started on when I see one thats been replaced with a tube of a different colour temperature ! 😀
Unfortunately it’s back to a colour temp issue with using white LED’s on stonework, it obviously depends on the colour of the stone, but it generally (in my opinion) stonework benefits from warmer whites and softer tones, white LED’s tend to be a bit harsh and unforgiving.
I was thinking they could introduce bulb replacement as a kind of added hurdle for that annual canoe race down the liffey !
Seriously tho’ in an ideal world bulbd should be replaced before they blow, it’s pretty easy to work out the life expectancy, so why not put in place a scheduled bulb replacement for any and all difficult to access bulbs, 2 blokes, one boat, one day, do the whole lot in one go,
(yes, I know I’m dreaming, but it reality they’re no harder to replace than the lamps in high level motorway lighting, just a different problem, I’m sure there’s a couple of lads in the corpo that’d love the idea of spending the day bobbing about on the Liffey!)
I kind of shyed away from mentioning the obvious advantages of LEDs (life expectancy/power consumption etc etc) as as soon as you mention LED’s some people tend to automatically assume they’re going to be changing colour! (cue “outraged cries of “you want to turn the river into a disco!!!”) although having the ability to alter rhe colours for specific days a la the empire state building is an interesting option. They would be perfect for saturated colours, but the colour of the white light outpout from white LED’s isn’t really ideal for lighting stonework, and due to the RGB nature of colour mixing LED’s they don’t do tints or shades of colour very ewll.
Another option that would work well on some of the bridges would be edge lighting with side glow figre optic cable, you can stick your light source somewhere easy to access.
and it’s gotta be blue with deep amber ripples 😀
Sorry, I just discovered this thread 🙂
Difficult to describe how I would light the bridges with a blanket answer, as I think each one has to be taken individually, highlighting the relavent structural features, and bringing out the individuality of each bridge. I certainly would would light them without tacking visiblle floods all over them for starters. I’dlike to see more made of the potential for highlight and contrast made between the structural underside of the brodges and the facade (sorry, not up on bridge terminology, do bridges have facades?) Also, I’d be keen to use the reflective properties of the river itself to bounce light back up onto the underside of the bridges in a contrasting colour to the general lighting of the underside. As for a colour pallette, again, although there has to be a certain uniformaty, shades and positioning can be altered to suit the individual properties, but I would certainly shy away from the “Hey this is Ireland, lets just whack a green flood under all the bridges, regardless of whether it suits them or not” Architecturallt the bridges are different, why not light them differently?
OK, so technically it’s not a street, but at least we managed to avoid putting lights on a stick on a stick, and with a mixture of optics managed to highlight the building as well as wash the cportyard (tho the eagle eyed amongst you will notice from the “blob” of light in the bottom left that “someone” managed to put the wrong optical arrangement in one of the fittings ! (this has since been rectified)
The lighting on the bridges generally is pretty ropey, its a bit of a bug-bear of mine as I’d love to get a crack at lighting one properly, the’re fabulous structures and could look so good if a bit of thought and artistry was put into them.
Admittedly the colour temperature thing could be seen as picky, but O’connel bridge is one of the citys landmarks and I thing desrves that extra care and attention, to my mind it just makes it look shoddy.
My minds still boggled that they can’t even be arsed to put the same colour temperature bulbs in the mutti headed fittings on the bridge, it’s a disgrace 😡
I don’t know if you’re aware of this but there was a plan for lighting all the bridges for the mellenium that was to involve a “spectacular” light show that swept up and down the river every night at a pre-proggrammed time. The OPW spent a fortune bringing in a Brazilian Lighting designer to work on this. I personally spent some time bobbing about on the river demonstrating various “moving head” fixtures for him. As far as I’m aware everything was ready to go until the aformentioned designer insisted at the last minute that to properly view the show all the streetlights down either side of the river had to be doused for the duration of the “spectacular” at this point the OPW said something along the lines of “don’t be so feckin’ daft” and he said “well feck ya’s then” took his design fee and legged it (I’m paraphrasing)
This all happened at the eleventh hour, and they’d already spent a massive amount on this Brazilian dude, so they approached Philips and from what I can gather just said “listen, we’re in a jam can you just sort something out for us thats relatively quick and cheap.
Understand this is only my interpretation of the events, as relayed to me by various people that where involved.Nah mate, has to be “luminaires” to get us really excited 😉
or to quote one lighting suppliers website “the street is lit with specially imported Italian luminaries”
Whilst I agree that the majority of buildings in Dublin are lit appallingly, to say that the best way to light a building is from afar is such a blatantly sweeping statement that it’s laughable.
It’s tantamount to me (not an architect)saying that the best way to finish off a building is to clad it ip pebble-dash, a satement that If I made here I think would be seen as either a joke or an example of gross ignorance. There is no hard and fast rule for lighting buildings of any kind other than, from my point of view, be as sympathetic to the archtecture as possible, and try and show it off in all it’s full glory.
Isn’t it a shame the OPW never ring me.British standard BS 1192-5:1998 covers general guidlines for construction cad drawings, layers, linetypes etc. You can order it from British Standards Online.
