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also be able to foresee the occupants' visual needs and behaviour," says Suvagau. "In other words, a lighting designer needs to paint light in volumetric layers while being conscious of glare issues, sustainability and worker performance. Not easy but exciting," he adds. Some of the advantages of new technologies include instantaneous on and off functions that allow for more incremental and personal control; dimmer efficiency and intranet systems, so entire buildings respond to an individual's preferences or touch. Suvagau also sees fluorescent lighting efficiencies as being on par with LED efficiency, with some fluorescent lamps lasting over 50,000 hours. "While we are waiting for LEDs to mature, designers should also look for enhancements with older technologies, such as fluorescent and metal-halide lamps, and use the controls at maximum," says Suvagau. "We educate people to understand what they want and make sure the new solution is not detrimental to the quality of their environment, and not detrimental to the environment [as a whole]." Sean Harris, manager of product marketing for lighting at Cree Lighting agrees and says, "People don't realize that incandescent lighting is very inefficient. The directionality of lighting that LED offers is much more efficient and allows a much better array of light to see your workspace and do your job without the fatigue that poor lighting creates. LED lights are also not damaged by on and off the way that traditional incandescent lights are." LEDs are also virtually maintenance-free. Most incandescent light bulbs will last three to six months, compared to a lifespan of up to 10 years for many LED lights. In a commercial setting, maintenance crews will no longer be changing bulbs every few months. Harris adds that an LED lighting system will pay for itself in three to five years, depending on the wattage rate of the area in which the building is located. Cree Lighting has produced an LED bulb that has broken the $10 barrier; a viable option for the budget-conscious consumer. Lighting p30-35Raised floors_lighting.indd 35 Pawel Stefanczyk, electrical engineer with Williams Engineering Canada, refers to the ergonomics of lighting as a critical component of a well-lit space. From the amount of glare to the colour Modular Lighting temperature – these Instruments' Scotty all affect our mood, fixture has an performance and adjustable LED quality of life. "For light disc. me as an engineer, the appearance of the fixture is less important than how that fixture performs." Stefanczyk adds that although everyone is talking about LED lighting right now, there are a number of advancements being made in the industry that will change the future of the sector. These changes include the development of plasma lighting and the sophisticated processes by which users can adjust light values from their computers and smartphones, which he believes will go far beyond simply shutting lights off and on. No matter how much we reduce energy consumption and swap out our short-lived bulbs for longer-life bulbs, there will always be waste generated when disposing of any lighting product. The Product Care Association manages product stewardship programs for a variety of paint and household hazardous waste industries across the country, including lights, through a program called LightRecycle. The program recycles lights for both residential and large volume generators, inside and outside. Alexandra Barrow, communications manager with Product Care Association, says, "Lighting materials can be brought into one of more than 200 light recycle collection sites, where they are broken down into component parts and are then reused to make other products." With program awareness at 45 per cent and growing, a program running in Manitoba and others starting up in other provinces, the future looks bright for light recycling across the country. With lighting solutions exploding into exciting new territories every day, one can only speculate at the power that lighting technology will hold in our future. n october 2013 /35 13-09-13 3:39 PM

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