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MVRDV has shared details of its latest design, the new Tiffany & Co. location in Shanghai’s Taikoo Li Qiantan retail development, featuring a glittering imitation of a diamond-encrusted facade. Image © Wen Studio The firm’s newest project for the jeweler follows last year's... View full entry
This month at New York's Guggenheim Museum, artist Jenny Holzer is having her landmark 1989 light projection restaged in the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building’s rotunda. The installation celebrates her innovative text-based art alongside pieces from the early 70s to today that... View full entry
At a time when supply chain disruptions continue to slow distribution, consumers embrace healthy eating habits and climate change is expected to affect crop yields, a practice known as controlled-environment agriculture, including indoor vertical farms relying on artificial light and technology, is attracting venture capitalists.
What made moving indoors possible was a drop in price in LED lights, which plunged as much as 94 percent in 2015 from 2008.
— The New York Times
The increasingly popular subsegment of the agriculture industry is expected to grow into a $9.7 billion market share by 2026 propelled by expanding urban populations and a decrease in arable land associated with traditional farming, which is on track to be cut in half by midcentury. Start-ups like... View full entry
The creative landscape of Saudi Arabia got a colorful new addition as STUFISH Entertainment Architects has revealed its design for what the firm says is now the world’s largest kaleidoscope. The massive 40 x 6 x 3-meter (131 x 19.5 x 10-foot) installation hinges on an intricate series of LED... View full entry
The Pennsylvania city announced in August it will become a dark sky city starting in 2022, meaning that it will switch to lower wattage LED bulbs and add shades along bridges, roads and other public areas. It’s the first city in the eastern part of the U.S. to adopt such policies but it joins other cities, including Tucson, Sedona and Flagstaff in Arizona, and Fulda in Germany, in their efforts to reduce light pollution and increase energy efficiency. — Bloomberg CityLab
The dark-sky movement officially began in 1988, has produced events such as Earth Hour, and is currently expanding into other U.S. cities such as Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Light pollution caused by stronger “white” LED fixtures has been shown to cause health and... View full entry
New York’s nightscape is as iconic [...] as it is taken for granted. A city without streetlights is impossible to imagine, but New York’s 396,572 street-side luminaires are as unremarkable as the streets’ paving — invisible until something changes. An initiative to replace sodium and halogen bulbs with energy- and cost-efficient LEDs has thrown the nightscape suddenly into question, as some city residents bemoan the loss of romance (and sleep). — Urban Omnibus
In her piece for Urban Omnibus, landscape and urban designer Emily Schlickman takes a fascinating closer look at the history of New York City's system of street-side luminaires (the largest in the nation), and how the recent transition to LED technology is affecting the city and its... View full entry
Nearly a fifth of a mile up in the sky atop Los Angeles’ tallest building, two massive LED displays — each 42 by 60 feet — sit dormant, ready to beam messages out across the city.
The screens consist of 250 million pixels, each no bigger than a pea, ready to explode with vibrant oranges, blues and greens once the sun sets and the building begins to glow.
— the LA Times
Los Angeles's tallest building, the Wilshire Grand, finally opened it's doors this past Friday. Standing at 1,100 feet, it is the tallest building in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. Beyond it's height, the tower is bringing something else new to the downtown skyline with two massive LED displays... View full entry
The American Medical Association (AMA) has just adopted an official policy statement about street lighting: cool it and dim it.
The statement, adopted unanimously at the AMA's annual meeting in Chicago on June 14, comes in response to the rise of new LED street lighting sweeping the country. An AMA committee issued guidelines on how communities can choose LED streetlights to "minimize potential harmful human health and environmental effects."
— CNN
There are two basic issues at hand. First, new, "white" LED lighting, which have a color temperature of between 4000K and 5000K, can cause discomfort and glare. This is because the light is concentrate and has high blue content, which can cause severe glare and force pupillary constriction... View full entry
Galleries often act as stagnant interior display spaces: their primary function is to host works in a relatively unobtrusive way that is artful without being ostentatious. But what about galleries that are designed to serve another purpose, as the freshly completed Roca’s Beijing Gallery in... View full entry
In addition to conceptually representing the inherent creativity of play, this touring modular playground made up of 35 white cubes mounted on safety rubber also features inlaid LEDs and a smoke machine, making it ridiculously cool for its target demographic.As Stephan Gustin, one of the... View full entry
high-intensity LED streetlights ... emit unseen blue light that can disturb sleep rhythms and possibly increase the risk of serious health conditions, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. [...]
Some [researchers] noted that exposure to the blue-rich LED outdoor lights might decrease people’s secretion of the hormone melatonin. Secreted at night, melatonin helps balance the reproductive, thyroid and adrenal hormones and regulates the body’s circadian rhythm of sleeping and waking.
— washingtonpost.com
While the American Medical Association cautions cities to re-evaluate their use of high-intensity LED lights for health reasons, others have pointed out that most televisions and computers also emit the blue light wavelength found to be potentially harmful. Aside from human health concerns, LEDs... View full entry
This post is brought to you by GKD Mediamesh®. GKD Mediamesh® is a woven stainless steel fabric with integrated LEDs that is used to create a transparent digital display. This unique product is the perfect solution when a digital display is needed on a façade, yet the view through windows... View full entry
In the Dutch town of Spijkenisse, the Theatre de Stoep designed by UNStudio recently celebrated its grand public opening, not long after the theater was completely realized. Inspired by the type of liveliness only experienced through live theater performances, the new cultural theater features undulating edges and a striking color palette of white and vivid purple, and circular LED lights on its façade. — bustler.net
Check out a timelapse video of the theater's construction below. More details about the project on Bustler. View full entry
Friday, October 3:Eisenhower Memorial clears key hurdle on Gehry design: In a positive step for the Memorial's Approving Process Odyssey, the National Capital Planning Commission has OK'd the Commission on Fine Arts (the other federal body that must approve the design) to vote on the... View full entry
When Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he did so, for the most part, using the light of the sun that streamed through the windows of the building. And for the past 500 years since then, viewers have admired the results of that work, for the most part, with the help of that same light source. Starting next month...the famous ceiling will be getting a new look in the form of new lights. Some 7,000 LEDs, to be precise [...] — The Atlantic
