Lighting in Design Q2 2018

Emerging trends in façade lighting

I lluminated building façades and building en- velopes not only add to the versatility of the architecture itself, but alter how we see and use the building. Building façades are powerful fixed statements which can be used to convey messages, communicate emotions and create attention. Contemporary lighting solutions for building façades also need to add value, showing a building off to its best potential whilst providing a positive corporate image. Lighting in Design spoke to Otto Horlacher from Giantlight to find out more about the latest trends in façade lighting and the challenges lighting designers are currently facing. LiD: What are the main considerations when it comes to façade lighting? OH: First, you need to identify the building and categorise it correctly. So you’ll have a commercial venue, such as an office block, an entertainment venue, such as a casino, then you have residen- tial venues and also hospitality venues – such as hotels or restaurants. Often the issue with façade lighting is that a façade has dimensions – it’s not a fat screen. You can take a foodlight, position it X metres away (as far as the road or the neighbours will allow) and you can blast the entire building with a foodlight, but you won’t pick up the detail, you won’t bring out the relief, you won’t access the 3D component of the façade. You need to try and get onto the façade and, if the architecture has overhangs, balconies, or any architectural features, attempt to highlight them.That brings another set of challenges; now that you’ve installed lighting on the façade of the building, how do you do maintenance 15 storeys up? Owing to the fact that access to halfway up a façade is very expensive, maintenance often doesn’t get done. A commercial building would typically have one or two features on the façade. A good idea is to highlight the roofine – this way the maintenance staff can get onto the roof, put on a safety belt, lean over the parapet wall and work on the linear lighting system around the top. With additional foodlight from the base, the features on the fa- çade will be accented.

When it comes to an entertainment venue, such as a casino, the sky’s the limit. You’re not going to offend anyone because casinos cannot be placed too close to a residential area, and they want the ‘wow factor’. They want people to drive past and say, “What is going on there?”The lighting can be as big as the budget available to you. There can be animation, search lights etc – you really want to blitz the place right out of the ground with light. Take something likeTimes Square Casino, they’ve got many architectural features that are so over-the- top that you need permission from the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) to use certain lighting, such as search lights. Hotels are especially tricky because they want to attract attention, but you have tenants who stay in hotels so you have to be careful about how you design the lighting. You cannot have a guest who cannot sleep because of colour changing lights coming through the windows, so you have to be very careful that you don’t bounce light into the ho- tel rooms. At the same time, they do want feature lighting because it’s a billboard for the business. With hotels it’s a fine line between accentuating the entire building with light and not causing discomfort for the patrons. And, anything that goes for a hotel, goes for residential as well. For the Michaelangelo apartment project in Sandton, we are doing a combination of lighting on the roof and on the ground, shining 42 storeys up, but nothing on the façade per se because we do not want to disturb residents with the lighting. With residential projects, it’s difficult because you’re often dealing with homeowners who don’t understand lighting and, frequently, the husband and wife differ in opinion. In factories, façade lighting issues tend to relate to security. Light pollution is another consideration. In certain regions, such as the Nordic countries, you are not allowed to shine light up into the sky. There are as- sociations such as the Night Sky and Star associa- tions that have become environmental bodies which prohibit and legislate against lighting straight up into the sky. That places modern foodlighting, such as lighting up a skyscraper, out of the equation.

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LiD Q2 - 2018