SPOTLIGHT REPORT Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability: a Guide for Architects Editors
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SPOTLIGHT REPORT Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability: A Guide for Architects Editors Paula Melton Editorial Director Brent Ehrlich Nadav Malin Alex Wilson James Wilson Peter Yost Graphic Design Julia Eva Bacon Cover Photo The Louisville Free Public Library South Central Regional Library Photo: Brandon Stengel About BuildingGreen BuildingGreen, Inc is an independent consultancy committed to providing accurate, unbiased, and timely guidance to help building industry professionals and policy makers improve the environmental performance of buildings and reduce their adverse impacts. We offer consulting, training, facilitation, and online resources to help our customers design and build from a whole-systems perspective. Our integrated design approach minimizes ecological impact and maximizes economic performance. Readers of this guide are eligible for continuing education credits from the AIA and GBCI. To claim your credits, take the quiz at www.buildinggreen.com/spotlight/lighting Published by BuildingGreen, Inc. 122 Birge St., Suite 30 Brattleboro, Vermont 05301 ©2021 BuildingGreen, Inc. All rights reserved. BuildingGreen Spotlight Report Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability: A Guide for Architects Lighting is an essential element in quality environments that support health and wellness while reducing energy use. By James Wilson Associate Editor The functionality of a building is largely dependent on the quality of its lighting. In order to safely and comfortably per- form their tasks, occupants need lighting that provides adequate visibility without causing discomfort or distraction. But a focus on quality is also the key to achieving sustainable lighting. As Nancy Clanton, CEO of Clanton & Asso- ciates, advises, “Don’t design for energy savings; design well, and the result will be incredible energy savings.” By creat- ing quality lighting conditions in their Photo: Lara Swimmer buildings, not only will project teams The third-floor reading space of the Madison Central Public provide functional and comfortable lighting conditions and improved produc- Library, designed by MSR, is spaces, but they’ll also achieve efficiency. tivity as well as higher student test scores. designed to receive an Studies also suggest that quality lighting abundance of daylight. And because the lighting in a space has has positive impacts in healthcare set- such a significant impact on how peo- tings—for example by improving the ple use that space and how they feel mood and perception of both staff and while in that space, it is critical to the patients. Conversely, poor lighting con- human-health component of sustain- ditions can hinder the way people work, ability. Lighting affects not only the per- learn, and heal by causing distraction, formance and productivity of occupants discomfort, and fatigue. but also, more critically, their well-being. High-quality lighting, beyond providing Getting the light right is crucial. As Bob basic comfort, can protect and promote Harris, FAIA, principal at Lake|Flato Ar- health. chitects put it, “If you’re not doing a good job with lighting, you’re not going to be doing a good job architecturally.” He ex- The effects of lighting plains that lighting is often treated as a Like acoustic design, lighting design can secondary concern, taking a back seat to have either positive or negative effects form-making. Too often, he argues, archi- on people, especially in the spaces where tecture is conceived of as an object to be many people spend a lot of time, like viewed from a detached position rather schools and offices. Research has shown than as a habitat to be experienced and positive correlations between quality lived in. Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability 3 BuildingGreen Spotlight Report And of course, in addition to affecting And some LEDs also contain copper, usability, comfort, and health, the way a which can create an environmental building is lit also affects its environmen- hazard if it accumulates in waterways. tal impact. (LEDs, despite their long life, will eventually need to be replaced. They can be disposed of in regular landfills, What do we mean when we as they are not currently regulated as say sustainable lighting? hazardous waste.) A wide variety of sustainability issues intersect with architectural lighting. Though this report will largely focus on energy efficiency and occupant health and wellness, it is important to also con- sider the following related concerns when developing an integrated approach to sustainable lighting: • Light pollution—Project teams should avoid over-lighting, prevent light tres- pass, and consider potential impacts of lighting on the plant and animal life of the surrounding ecosystem, as well as on neighboring buildings, places, Photo: Mike Knell. and communities. License: CC BY-SA 2.0. High quality, low energy As part of an integrated • Life-cycle impacts of lighting prod- approach to sustainable ucts—Lighting designers should work The information offered in this report lighting design, project with manufacturers over time to re- generally revolves around lighting design teams should avoid lighting strategies that contribute duce the embodied energy and car- that provides building occupants with the to light pollution. bon cost of fixtures, luminaires, and highest-quality illumination possible— lamps. To help extend the life of the providing comfortable and safe environ- building and further reduce environ- ments in which to complete their tasks— mental impacts, when appropriate the while using as little energy as possible. lighting should be designed so that it can be easily retrofitted and adapted According to the Energy Information Ad- to align with future technology ad- ministration, in 2012, lighting in U.S. com- vances. (See Modular LED Lighting mercial buildings required 212 billion Enters the Mainstream and Product as kWh of electricity—about 17% of total a Service: Buying the Lumen, Not the commercial building electricity used in Lightbulb.) the nation. But technology has been rap- idly evolving, and it’s becoming ever eas- • Chemicals of concern—Project teams ier and more cost effective to drastically should advocate and work with man- reduce the amount of energy consumed ufacturers to, over time, reduce the by lighting. In fact, LEDs have become level of toxic materials in lighting so efficacious that additional gains in products. For example, compact flu- efficiency are small. The point has been orescent lights, which contain highly reached where many in the lighting in- toxic mercury, have to a large extent dustry, who now see energy efficiency as been replaced by LEDs, which do not a given, are turning most of their atten- contain mercury. However, some- tion to the human-health component of times LEDs are manufactured with sustainability and the ways that quality high levels of lead and heavy metals. lighting can support it. Lighting Design for Health and Sustainability 4 BuildingGreen Spotlight Report Designing Sustainable Lighting LEARN THE LINGO: Lighting Literacy In pursuit of quality sustainable lighting, One option is to have the lighting design- a good place for any project team to start er give a brief educational presentation to • Color Rendering Index (CRI): a metric that describes is with a refresher on the fundamentals the entire team. This would also allow the how faithfully a light source of how light and human vision work. A lighting designer to catch everyone up on renders the true colors of ob- good grasp of the relationship between the latest information about lighting tech- jects and spaces (natural light light levels and what people actually see niques and technologies. (For example, a has a perfect index of 100) can go a long way toward helping the basic understanding of how LEDs work • Correlated Color tempera- ture (CCT): often shortened team make design decisions that will con- and how to evaluate the quality of differ- to “color temperature” or tribute to efficiency, health, and comfort. ent products can be very useful. See our “Kelvin temperature,” it is previous feature article, LEDs: The Future used to described the color Understanding the difference and rela- Is Here.) The lighting industry is a rapidly output of a light source— Common CCT values include: tionship between “measured light”—for evolving and increasingly complex field, » warm, slightly example, the amount of lumens that a fix- and knowledge that was current only a 2,700K: ture emits—and “perceived light”—what yellow tone, used to create few years ago may already be outdated. relaxing environments a person actually sees—shifts the focus » toward designing for effects of light and Brennan Schumacher, lighting design- 4,000K: neutral white tone, used to create “balanced” away from engineering for light levels. er and associate principal at Mazzetti + environments that allow GBA, told BuildingGreen that on every for both relaxation and project he works on, he gives a presen- concentration 1. Learn the basics of light tation to the entire project team early in » 6,500K: cool, slightly As the members of a project team may all the process. This allows him to educate blue tone, used to create environments that have an have different levels of knowledge and them about his design perspective and energizing effect experience with lighting, it can be useful approach to sustainable lighting design. • Glare: a vision impairment and efficient to devote some time, at the “I think that adds a lot of value for the caused by either direct or beginning