What has also not been said is that people hate fluorescent lighting, that LEDs represent an immature technology which may never yield great energy savings, or become a general illumination light source, and that no one will be using metal halide in their boudoir. Attacking the incandescent light bulb is easy, but misguided, as it is an inextricable part of modern living.The incandescent light bulb, yes, the plain old warm, dimmable A-19 lamp is a cultural touchstone. The cool compact fluorescent lamp will never be the intimate friend that is Edison’s (and Swan’s) lamp. Maybe this is nostalgia, after all commercial and institutional buildings have been lit primarily as fluorescent for more than sixty years. Who needs the bulb? Maybe only eccentric romantics.
It can also be argued that the incandescent bulb is quite environmentally friendly. Unlike higher technology lamps, the simple filament bulb does not require rare earth gases and phosphors, leaches no mercury, and requires no proprietary manufacturing patents. The incandescent light bulb is produced worldwide, and is often a local product, which requires less packaging and less fuel for transport from low-wage factories to high-profit markets. Take a look at your next compact fluorescent package and see if it wasn’t made in Hungary, China, or Vietnam. If total embodied energy were included in the calculation, would the compact fluorescent lamp still be the great white hope?
Archive for May, 2007
What is environmentaly friendly lighting?
Friday, May 18th, 2007Slow Death
Friday, May 18th, 2007Unusual is my death. My young body has no cruel or destructive sickness,
And here I do not wait for the impossible blow of a blind sword so I can die spilling my blood.
I am slowly fading away: in the same way I breathe life, the sweet abandonment we call death penetrates and grows inside me.
~Antigone, Antigona by Jose Watanabe
The Architecture of Death
Thursday, May 17th, 2007If death does have a structure – or, at least, if near-death experiences do spatialize in certain pre-existing ways – if death has a spatial format, you could say – then clearly death could also be architecturally reconstructed, based on eyewitness accounts, here on earth, in the present moment, with us.
We could visit it, in groups, and emotionally prepare…
So what would happen if an architect teamed up with an anthropologist (who studies cultural narrations of the near-death experience) and with a neurophysiologist (who understands the underlying cortical mechanisms), to design themed environments specifically meant for triggering NDEs?
It’d be a kind of post-Buddhist thanatological fun ride, complete with people passing out – then waking up, blinking and vibrant, determined to change their lives, giving hugs to others and starting things over again.
Lords of Power
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007The destiny of the weak is to create lords of power, as in dreams we create beings to fear, and only asleep we see them, and feel anguish.
But now I am awake, and seeing Creon intimidates me.
Crowned yesterday, he is the new king of Thebes, and he already furrows his brows.
He is slowly climbing down the steps of his palace and I know that he does not bring joyous words in his mouth.
~Narrator, Antigona by Jose Watanabe
Duty
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007It was fear, Antigone, because death would be our payment for burying him. Come, sister, I begged, lets better ask the dead to forgive us, and let prevail the orders of the powerful who are alive. But you reproached me saying: Go, Ismene, seek the approval of the tyrant’s world, I will seek the grace of the Gods”, and you went to the hill of our dead.
~Ismene, Antigona by Jose Watanabe
Green Urban Cooling
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007Creating more parks and green spaces in urban areas could cool cities by up to 4°C – possibly enough to offset the warming from climate change – say researchers.“If you look at infrared maps of cities, the woodland areas are 12°C cooler than city centres with no trees,” says Roland Ennos at Manchester University in the UK, who carried out the study with colleagues.
Ennos’s team used the city of Manchester as a template for their study. With two computer models – one to calculate changes in temperature and one to calculate changes in rainwater run-off – they investigated how the urban climate would change if world greenhouse-gas emissions continue to rise at the current rate.
“We found that the temperature in Manchester will go up by 4°C by 2080 if the amount of green area remains unchanged,” says Ennos.
Overlap
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007It feels as though it has has been quite a while since last I posted more than a link and quote. The trip to California was very good, and very packed. I had several meetings that were very productive. I saw several plays. I met with many friends. I celebrated my grandmother’s 94th birthday. All in all it was a lovely trip. And oh my! The weather. I forget sometimes just how wonderful the weather is in the Bay Area.
Things get rather hectic over here at Light Que 23 as of this afternoon. This week we are workshopping Antigona. There will be a reading on Thursday and Friday nights that may or may not have lighting. Details are still TBD as we are primarily focused on Rumania and getting all that stuff together. I think the play is coming together rather nicely. I have not seen anything since last Monday, but the direction it was going when last I saw a rehearsal and by all reports since it should be quite an exciting show.
I have a big design meeting this weekend for Aida. The director, set designer and I will sit down and do a listen through of the piece while discussing scenic and lighting ideas. It should be a good meeting although the piece is long to begin with and once discussion is added in it may well take the better part of the day. I met with the technical director of the theatre when I was in California and was able to figure out several of the quirky aspects to the space that will at least minimize surprises.
Next Monday we load-in for Fate’s Imagination at the Players Theatre. We had a bit of a snafu as the theatre drawings the set designer received were rather deceptive as to where certain walls were located, so the design had to be reworked for the realities of the space. Quite a lot to do so close to a load-in, but so it goes from time to time. At least we found this out before we were in the space thus the only problem is a time crunch rather than a full rebuild and delayed opening.
So much of this work must be taken on faith. Faith that the drawings are correct, that other people are doing their job, that your work on paper bears out in reality. All of this before even considering an audience and the performative aspects of the show. It feels like the work I do is one long series of hypothetical statements punctuated briefly by the answer of opening night. This “answer” as it were is in many if not most ways incidental to the journey of arriving there.
The hectic schedule continues as we leave for Rumania the same day as the first press preview for Fate’s Imagination. So at least with that one I miss the punctuation. I will be working on another show in another country when it opens. I still get a little surprise when that happens despite it being a fairly regular part of my work flow. By the opening the show is done, and usually has been for several performances. My work is and has been over for some time so really it shouldn’t feel strange. Of course a lot of it is the disappointment in missing out on the party.
The Importance of Design
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007“The businessman wants to create something for everyone, which leads to products that are middle of the road,” says Brunner. “It becomes about consensus, and that’s why you rarely see the spark of genius.”“Critical to Apple’s success in design is the way Jobs brought focus and discipline to the product teams,” Norman says. “[Jobs] had a single, cohesive image of the final product and would not allow any deviation, no matter how promising a new proposed feature appeared to be, no matter how much the team complained. Other companies are more democratic, listening to everyone’s opinions, and the result is bloat and a lack of cohesion.
“The difference between BJ and AJ, Before and After Jobs, is not the process,” he continues. “It is the person. Never before did Apple have such focus and dedication. Apple used to wobble, moving this way and that. No more.”
One direct result of that sharpened focus is Apple’s unique ability to create simple products. Though the idea of a simple high-tech device seems counterintuitive (why not offer more functionality if you can?), it’s worked for Apple.
“The hardest part of design, especially consumer electronics,” says Norman, “is keeping features out.” Simplicity, he says, is in itself a product differentiator, and pursuing it can lead to innovation.
Rolston agrees. “The most fundamental thing about Apple that’s interesting to me,” he says, “is that they’re just as smart about what they don’t do. Great products can be made more beautiful by omitting things.”
Meditating on Mental Exercises
Sunday, May 13th, 2007Three months of intense training in a form of meditation known as “insight” in Sanskrit can sharpen a person’s brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss.These new findings add to a growing body of research showing that millennia-old mental disciplines can help control and improve the mind, possibly to help treat conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“Certain mental characteristics that were previously regarded as relatively fixed can actually be changed by mental training,” University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson said. “People know physical exercise can improve the body, but our research and that of others holds out the prospects that mental exercise can improve minds.”
Solid Light
Thursday, May 10th, 2007Researchers from the Universities of Melbourne and Cambridge have unveiled a new theory that shows light can behave like a solid.“Solid light will help us build the technology of this century,” says Dr Andrew Greentree of the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne.
Dr Greentree and colleagues Jared Cole and Professor Lloyd Hollenberg of the University of Melbourne with Dr Charles Tahan of the University of Cambridge made their ‘solid light’ breakthrough using tools more commonly used to study matter.
“Solid light photons repel each other as electrons do. This means we can control photons, opening the door to new kinds of faster computers,” says Dr Greentree.
