Osram unveils new lighting for St. Peter’s Basilica
(Italy) - The new lighting for St. Peter’s Basilica features 780 luminaires fitted with around 100,000 LEDs.
In a special inauguration event, Osram has unveiled the new LED lighting system for St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City.
Having previously provided lighting for the Sistine Chapel, Rafael’s Rooms and St. Peter’s Square, this latest project saw Osram install 780 luminaires equipped with approximately 100,000 LEDs in the basilica - one of the largest and most important Catholic churches in the world.
With the installation of new, intelligent lighting control, the lighting of the church, which covers an area of around 22,000sqm, can be quickly adapted to predefined lighting scenarios. With the new LED light, the mosaics in the domes of the side aisles can be seen down to the smallest detail, while numerous works of art that had previously disappeared into semi-darkness are now fully illuminated.
Further to this, the new lighting offers energy savings of up to 90 percent, with a reduction in the number of luminaires by 80 percent.
Prior to the big reveal of the new lighting, Osram hosted a conference for press and VIP guests from around the world, where Osram CEO Olaf Berlien was joined by Cardinal Guiseppe Bertello, President of the Governorate of the Vatican City State and Cardinal Angelo Comastri, Archpriest of the Vatican Pope’s Basilica of St. Peter.
“We are very proud of this lighting masterpiece in St. Peter’s Basilica,” said Berlien. “The project demonstrates just how history and high tech can be combined in the best possible way by using the right expertise. More than 500 years of history are now being bathed in digitally controlled LED light.”
Cardinal Bertello continued: “This project provides a significant service, both to art lovers and to those who come on pilgrimage to this symbol of Catholicism. We are pleased that a special light has been cast on this important location - thanks to the new illumination.”
“The Basilica’s new lighting system fits in perfectly with the requirements for worship, prayer and celebration - particularly when the Holy Father is in attendance,” added Cardinal Comastri. “At the same time, this ‘intelligent’ illumination has also allowed us to achieve another purpose: to be able to admire the architectural beauty of the Basilica.”
Lightswitch merges with Orangelite
(USA) - The merger of Lightswitch and Orangelite sees the companies expand on their client base across the US and the rest of the world.
Lighting, media and visual design company Lightswitch has this week merged with Oranglite, a lighting design, programming and visualisation firm with offices in San Jose, CA and Chicago, IL.
The deal will see the merged firm expand on its delivery of lighting design and visualisation expertise to a diverse group of clients across the US and around the world. Orangelite’s founder Tyler Elich will work with John Featherstone, Principal at Lightswitch, to guide the company and steer its growth.
“Orangelite has become a force to be reckoned with in the lighting and visual design market,” said Featherstone. “With clients ranging from Blizzard Entertainment to BMW, from Eddie Izzard to Bob Dylan, they perfectly complement the Lightswitch portfolio.
“More than that, Tyler and his team are visionary designers and collaborators, and we couldn’t be more excited that they are joining the Lightswitch family.”
Elich founded Orangelite thirteen years ago, building a lighting design practice with diverse projects from ESports and comedy, to corporate events, to huge arena pop tours. He brings specific expertise in rendering and visualisation for lighting and events, and has developed a reputation for his rendering art - both for his own clients and for a host of other designers.
“Orangelite has been looking to join a like-minded firm with a focus on design that would broaden our expertise and expand our senior design talent,” said Elich. “We have worked closely with Lightswitch for many years and we feel they are the ideal partner to help expand our reach.
“Our firms share key core values of client commitment, design excellence and dedication to our employees. We are looking forward to building on these values by combining the strengths of our firms.”
iGuzzini partners with HERstory
(UAE) – iGuzzini partners with HERstory, an exhibition directed by Prof. Rafia Ghubash, supported by the Women’s Museum in Dubai and in collaboration with the School of Design, Politecnico Milano.
Curated by Anna Barbara (Politecnico di Milano; SenseLab, Milan) and Indu Varanasi (irdesign, Dubai), HERstory is a curated cross-cultural interaction between women who have enlightened lives through their words and actions.
The participatory project is a dynamic interaction between five women from the UAE paired with five female artists who translated and articulated their stories through art.
HERstory is an intergenerational creative exchange among inspiring women in the UAE, a collection of stories aimed at building a dialogue between different generations, bridging the experiences. The interaction is not aimed at developing a biography of the women leaders but to activate, nurture and document a unique exchange and dialogue between inspiring personalities.
Some of those involved included Isobel Abulhoul, Founder of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and Co-Founder of Magrudy’s bookshop chain. Afra Atiq is an Emirati award-winning poet, Alla Lootag from the curatorial team at the Louvre, Abu Dhabi and Najat Makki, the first Emirati woman to earn a government scholarship to study art abroad in 1977.
The event will be held at the Women’s Museum in Dubai on 23 January from 6pm. The exhibition, displaying words, images, objects and videos that are interwoven into the understanding of the story-telling process, will run until 31 March.
iGuzzini donated and upgraded the lighting scheme in the mezzanine where the artworks are displayed. The Palco low voltage illuminates the exhibition area and provides a higher visual comfort for visitors. Its higher colour rendering reveals truer colours and chromatic nuances of the displayed artworks, producing a uniformed light beam, free of any chromatic aberrations.
HERstory is sponsored by Came and Kelmer and is the first of a wider project for Women Design Capital, which was launched during the Dubai Design Week by Anna Barbara and Ingrid Paoletti. The Politecnico Milan is team leader of a constellation of institutions and organisations willing to encourage the cross-cultural exchange and dialogue on topics concerning women through a series of initiatives, activities and projects heading towards the Expo 2020.
The Women’s Museum is the first of its kind in the region and is a national archive and documentation centre dedicated to the women of UAE. It is concerned with all aspects of their lives with historical and social contexts. It is a contemporary cultural centre that explores the activities of Emirati women in the arts, academy, business, culture, politics and society.
The Women’s Museum was founded in 2012 by Prof. Rafia Ghubash, Professor of Psychiatry, former President of the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain and President of the Arab Network for Women in Science and Technology and is illuminated by iGuzzini lighting.
LUG joins the World Economic Forum
(Poland) – The Polish manufacturer becomes a Forum Member at the World Economic Forum.
LUG joins the World Economic Forum as part of a global community of companies, international organisations and institutions committed to improving the state of the world.
LUG specialises in design, development and manufacturing of LED lighting solutions that offer answers to some of the everyday challenges of modern society and aims to improve energy-efficiency, reducing carbon footprint and increasing the safety and comfort for the general public.
“We are excited to join the World Economic Forum and look forward to sharing our knowledge, experience and ideas contributing to what we recognise as our common goal of making the world a better and safer place for all of us,” said Ryszard Wtorkowski, President of LUG.
“In addition, being one of only five Polish companies among the Forum Members, we regard this as a great opportunity to promote Polish business and entrepreneurship on the international stage.
“I also have to say that becoming a member of a globally recognised organisation like the Forum in the year of celebrating the 30th anniversary of establishing our company strengthens our confidence that the decisions we have made along these years were right and that we have the ability to positively impact the state of the world now and in the future.”
Cook appointed to drive Lighting Reality’s global expansion
(UK) – Lighting Reality, the Birmingham-based developer of real time lighting design software applications for outdoor and street lighting, appoints Tony Cook as Chief Operating Officer.
Cook joined the Lighting Reality team in February 2018 as Chief Technology Officer and has overseen the architecture and subsequent development of the firm’s next generation products, due for release in 2019.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Bosher said: “Tony joined us at a key stage in our growth plans and I am delighted to announce his promotion to Chief Operating Officer and as a director of Lighting Reality.
“We are now pushing our products and services on a global scale and Tony’s extensive knowledge and contacts in overseas markets will help us drive our expansion.”
Cook said: “Our principal targets in 2019 will be the lighting markets in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia.
“We are constantly updating Lighting Reality PRO and in early 2019 will release Version 2.1, which focuses on vertical obstructions and provides more 3D aspects in the software.
“However, our giant leap forward, and timed to coincide with our global push, will be the launch of our next generation product in 2019, which will be a major release for us, involving a total re-write of the product to take advantage of all the up-to-date facilities we can now incorporate,” Cook added.
Lighting Reality’s flagship product, Lighting Reality PRO, is used by lighting designers worldwide. The latest version includes new multi-language, multi-standards content, which makes it available to exterior and street lighting designers worldwide.
Schuler Shook appoints three new partners
(USA) – Emily Klingensmith, Giulio Pedota and Joshua Grossman appointed as partners at Chicago’s Schuler Shook.
Schuler Shook has appointed Emily Klingensmith, Giulio Pedota and Joshua Grossman as new partners.
The new team brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Chicago-based theatre planning and lighting design firm.
Klingensmith began her career at Schuler Shook as an intern and climbed to key designer and leader, and has played an important role in the development of the firm’s lighting internship program. Her notable lighting design projects include Wintrust in Chicago, Bridgestone Americas Headquarters in Nashville and Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Centre in Skokie.
Pedota has a background in theatre and experience at an electrical engineering firm before focusing on lighting design for the built environment. His notable lighting projects include The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, The Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Riverwalk.
Grossman has a background in technical theatre that earned him a BFA at Emerson College. His theatre consulting involves him in several projects with Schuler Shook’s Chicago and Melbourne, Australia offices. His notable theatre consulting projects include the Kennedy Centre – Terrace Theatre, Wallis Annenberg Centre for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills and The Theatre School at DePaul University, Chicago.
Other Territories submits final call for proposals
(Brazil) - The deadline for proposals for the project is 22 January.
Organisers of the Other Territories project in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, have issued a final call for entries as the deadline for proposals looms.
The aim of the project is to gather, through an international call for ideas, a set of “ephemeral interventions” that will be proposed for Buritis, a mountainous district of Belo Horizonte, allowing for an instantaneous change in its landscape.
Through the project, a range of ignored and unusual spaces in the city will be brought to life while opening up a new field of study: the latent possibilities of the existing city. An opportunity to test new ideas, exchange experiences and arouse sensibilities, Other Territories will act as a way of showing that small interventions can generate lasting transformations with limited resources, acting as “an instrument to think of alternative solutions of recomposition of a frayed urban fabric, such as that of Belo Horizonte”.
Interventions chosen through the international call for projects will compose an exhibition in the unusual “Viaduct of Arts”, and at a later time will be organised in the form of a cultural festival, where some of the selected proposals will actually be constructed.
Alongside a tour to experience the works, Other Territories intends to act as a space for debate around issues relating to the city, exploring interfaces between architecture, visual arts, public lighting and urban landscape, and the problems surrounding city management, environmental and architectural liabilities, urban voids and the real estate market. These ideas can be presented by professionals and students working in the areas of architecture, visual arts, landscaping, design and performing arts.
The deadline for proposals is 22 January, all the information on entering can be found here: www.outrosterritorios.com.br/en/call_for_projects
Zumtobel Group opens new space dedicated to light
(France) - The opening of a new Light Centre at Zumtobel Group’s Paris headquarters continues the company’s growth in France.
On the 13 December 2018, the Zumtobel Group opened a new Light Centre in Paris.
In this new Light Centre, the Zumtobel Group will showcase its broad portfolio in the field of professional lighting, along with the associated services in the new premises, allowing light to be experienced in its many different fascinating facets.
The opening of the new Light Centre follows the move by Zumtobel Group to a new head office in Paris earlier in 2018. Expanding the site with the new Light Centre offers a unique physical entry point for customers, with the group now offering all brands and solutions in one place. As well as hosting the internal Lighting Design office, the new Light Centre is designed to be the reference place in Paris and in France to witness the power and the potential of light.
“We are very pleased to be closer to our customers again with our new Light Centre and to strengthen our presence in Paris, the City of Light,” said Marcel Masson, Managing Director France. “With the new Light Centre, we offer an ‘agora’ to architects and project leaders and give them the opportunity to see, feel and experience light.”
The new Light Centre in Paris is based on an open space concept that invites customers to exchange and network. The minimalist concept emphasises the typical architectural aspect of the 19th century building while letting natural and artificial light do their magic.
In this new Light Centre, the Zumtobel Group presents the expertise of its Zumtobel and Thorn brands in various lighting applications for indoor and outdoor in different exhibition zones.
The welcome space with ‘Faszinosum’ and ‘Brandwall’, which are characteristic for Zumtobel Group Light Centres, is the point of attraction. Focused product presentations are deliberately avoided and light is shown as a material and as pure matter in a completely brand-neutral way.
In this part of the Light Centre, visitors can truly experience the fascination of light. The showroom is showcasing the Zumtobel Masterpiece by Danish star artist Olafur Eliasson, and is currently exhibiting the last annual report artwork from creative agency Sagmeister & Walsh.
Eden Design bloc
Noticing that black and white colours are predominant in the lighting industry, Eden Design was inspired to create an alternative. Not wanting to use just one single material, the use of diverse natural materials was explored. The result is a sleek design, easy to install, modular and without visible fastening elements. With Bloc, a solution that creates the freedom to combine diverse luxurious materials in a high-end linear lighting design was pioneered.
Zumi Copter In-Track
The Copter In-Track from Belgian manufacturer Zumi is equipped with a 359-degree rotating strip, meaning that light can be directed from the profile onto any desired location, to cast the most light. Incredibly versatile, the fixture allows for two or more ‘Copters’ to be placed next to each other, without interfering with one another. Its slimline linear profile is available in either white or black, with an opal diffuser, while the ‘in-track’ adapter makes it appear as if the luminaire sticks to the ceiling.
Delta Light Hedra
Hedra is a series of pendant, spotlight and wall mounted luminaires, available as a full LED solution or for retrofit bulbs. Hedra adds refinement, finesse and colour to the existing Delta Light product portfolio. Characterised by an atypical hinge, a design element that not only catches the eye, but also serves as storage for technical parts within the luminaire. Aside from black and white, Hedra is also available in the new Gold Champagne and Black Bronze finishes. The faceted design of Hedra captures and reflects the ambient light with an ever-changing look as a result.
Flos Zero Track
A surface installed track with minimum physical size, the Zero Track from Flos Architectural allows for the insertion of a variety of dimmable fixtures for accent or general lighting. For a diffuse light, Piero Lissoni has designed Atom, a rectangular or round luminaire available in three different sizes according to the amount of light needed, and an accent element for a direct effect. Also on show was the Find Me spotlights by Jorge Herrera, applicable for a direct lighting beam.
