News
November/December 2022
THE LATEST NEWS AND STORIES
YOUNG LIGHTER SHORTLIST REFLECTS FULL SPECTRUM OF LIGHTING
WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
The recently announced shortlist for SLL Young Lighter 2022 reflects a wide spectrum of lighting topics. There are six contenders competing for the final four places which will be announced this month. Two of those shortlisted are lighting designers at Arup. Anna Forrester (bottom right) is concerned with improving the circadian rhythms of children using a lighting device, while her colleague Coleman Deady Ridge (top right) has been investigating adaptive lighting for multi-use spaces in homes. Scott Kluger (top centre), a senior daylight designer at Hoare Lea, is exploring his own specialism with a paper entitled Daylight Harvester: a tool to enhance lighting operational performance. Hiba Mazhar (bottom centre), a lighting designer and application specialist at Phillips Lighting in Karachi, is looking at reimagining traditional city lighting with innovative ways to avoid light pollution. Kenny Cliffe (top left), a lighting designer at Ridge, has focused on Adapting to the Digital Future, while Chia Huei Lu (bottom left), intermediate lighting designer at Nulty+, examines the role of light in the practice of mindfulness. The four finalists (announced on 3 November) will each give a presentation online for the final judging on 15 December. The winner receives a cash prize of £1000. More information at: www.cibse.org/get-involved/societies/society-of-light-and-lighting-sll/ sll-events/sll-young-lighter
Not difficult to spot what inspired these pendant lampshades by Japanese designer Nanako Kume. ‘Since childhood, I was fascinated by the shape and fleetingness of shavings that are made when sharpening pencils,’ she says. ‘I thought that by increasing the size and thickness of what must be discarded as waste, it would be possible to create new products while maintaining the beauty of the shape.’ The wood block is softened in a
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steamer, then spray painted before Kume shaves the shape using a specially designed giant pencil sharpener. Each lampshade varies depending on the species, colour and shape of wood. www.designboom.com/design/ nanako-kume
A group of French and Japanese researchers working collaboratively have developed a coating that could improve window insulation, according to a report of their findings in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM). They have made metal nanocomposite coatings that improve the insulating properties of window glazing. The new coating prevents a significant portion of near-infrared (NIR) and ultraviolet rays (UV) from passing through, while at the same time admitting visible light. ‘Although the fabrication of commercial products is still a long way ahead, our work demonstrated a significant improvement in UV and NIR-blocking properties compared to previous research,’ says Fabien Grasset, research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). ‘A large amount of the annual energy consumption of a standard building goes to cooling and/or heating systems to maintain indoor temperatures at comfortable levels,’ adds Grasset. Having fabricated and analysed the performance of nanocomposites based on niobium-tantalum cluster compounds containing chloride or bromide ions, they found that chloride-based nanoclusters provided the best performance in terms of blocking both NIR and UV rays, while still allowing the passage of visible light. According to the researchers, NIR and UV blocking by the nanoclusters depended on their concentration, dispersion and oxidation state. By tuning these parameters, the team was able to improve the nanocluster performance. The nanoclusters were dispersed into a water-soluble polymer that was then coated on to indium-tin-oxide (ITO) glass. For more details, go to: www.tandfonline. com/doi/full/10.1080/14686996.2022.21 05659
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