Dear Architectural Lighting Reader,
I’m conducting an editorial experiment. Today I am trying out a content curation article, a kind of “behind the scenes” look at the news items, design tidbits, and other miscellany that catch my eye as I stay up to date with all things lighting, architecture, and design related. Let me know what you think and if you’d like to see this become part of Architectural Lighting’s regular lineup. You can reach me at [email protected]. Enjoy! — Elizabeth Donoff, Editor-in-Chief, Architectural Lighting
Solar Eclipse Swag
With the 2017 Solar Eclipse event, taking place across the United States on August 21, 2017, Hammerpress Letterpress + Design Studio has created a commemorative print and postcard.
Adobe Stock
Calculating the Day
For all the lighting geeks out there (myself included) ever wondered what is the difference between twilight and civil twilight? On the other hand, even why twilight is divided into three types (civil, nautical, and astronomical)? Merriam-Webster offers a brief history of how we calculate the day.
Adobe Stock
The City of Rome is Not Feeling Eternal
Severe drought and higher-than-average temperatures have led to water rationing, threatening the abundant flow of water in the city’s famed aqueducts and baroque fountains. That’s not the only infrastructure problem Rome is facing: trash is piling up and there’s public uproar over the city’s switch to LED streetlighting as people start to experience the cool white light of LEDs rather than the familiar amber glow of mercury vapor or high-pressure sodium sources. It’s a lighting scenario–displeasure with a new light source and unfamiliar color temperature and light quality–that’s become a familiar call to arms in metropolises around the world.
Courtesy Finally Light Bulb
A Non-LED Lamp in an LED World?
Continued disruption in the lamp (a.k.a. light bulb) market. The Boston Globe reports on the Finally Light Bulb Company and its Tesla Technology™ Self Ballasted Induction lamps.
Courtesy Handel Architects
A rendering of the proposed tower at the new 115 Winthrop Square development in Boston.
Super-Tall Towers and Long Shadows Over Boston Common
The debate over the proposed 775-foot-tall tower by development company Millennium Partners and its challenge to the rules governing shadows over Boston Common would appear to be over. On July 28, Governor Charlie Baker signed a bill that allows for a one-time exception to the Shadow Laws. Friends of the Public Garden spearheaded a public outreach campaign to preserve the existing shadow regulations, which date to 1990, as well as the Boston zoning code’s provisions that protect the Common and the Public Garden. The shadow issue has emerged as one of the many issues Boston is facing as it experiences a building boom.
