Lighting in Design Q3 2021

Left: Flexible lighting systems support resiliency in the workplace by providing a com- fortable, productive, engaging work en- vironment that can change and adapt over time. Right: Lighting is functional and essential, but it also has the power to be motivating, engaging, and to create a connection to nature.

How smart lighting helps define the resilient workspace

Offices look very different from what they did just two years ago, but the traditional workplace was changing long before that.

B efore the pandemic, open office plans were ceding to flexible office plans; the workday itself was becoming more fluid as employees moved between remote work and onsite work; global markets demanded innovative ways to communicate when travel was too cumbersome or expensive. Today, more than ever, a successful workplace needs to be resilient – it has to be flexible and nimble enough to handle anticipated and unanticipated change, able to support employee wellbeing, and poised to continue to add value over time. Flexible, smart lighting systems are essential to resilience. And while the coronavirus pandemic has helped pinpoint the focus on flexible lighting, specifiers and manufacturers were already implementing solutions that could respond to whatever the future brought while being human centric enough to provide a comfortable, productive, engaging work environment. Wireless systems enable that flexibility. They are simpler and easier to design, but also dynamic, more powerful, and more responsive than many wired options. Lighting and shading solutions can enhance comfort and foster a connection to the outdoors. State-of-the-art controls help balance the human need for interaction with social distancing recommendations by offering personalised or touchless control options for employees and occupants. And smart solutions contribute to more efficient space management by helping to identify and evaluate occupancy patterns and work in concert with scheduling and room-reservation software.

Flexible lighting: Able to address today’s realities and tomorrow’s challenges Even in an ideal world, lighting requirements change as projects progress. To meet aggressive timelines and demanding budgets lighting control solutions have to be easier to design, require fewer up-front details, and be able to adapt quickly to accommodate changes over time. The fewer limitations a system places on designers, and ultimately their clients, the better. For lighting designers, it can be more efficient to rely on a go-to system that is equally at home in both small spaces and large spaces, retrofit and new construction, and with whatever fixtures and light sources they select. Wireless, scalable solutions can offer all these advantages, and more – they can pivot quickly in the face of changing space layouts, can be easily reprogrammed or rezoned to align with social distancing guidelines, and with wireless it is easy to add controls at any time wherever and whenever they are needed. Wireless solutions will play an even bigger role moving forward since they can be installed and programmed quickly with no new wiring – this is especially important in retrofits. System controls such as occupancy sensors, daylight sensors, and timeclocks are not revolutionary, but they are increasingly important to meet code, and to provide the right lighting, at the right time. Again, wireless systems offer reassurance that when the client wants additional control locations or needs to add wireless sensors for touchless control, the designer can deliver without having to reinvent the

20

LiD Q3 - 2021