LuxLive is an annual lighting event offering a space to learn, meet and network with fellow lighting professionals. With a physical trade show understandably impossible this year, we were thrilled to learn that the organisers had decided to offer a Digital Festival to still make this key event happen. Offering to bring the LuxLive experience to our desks, the event provided panels, presentations and even private virtual meetings to reimagine the event from your computer screen.
We were particularly excited by the topics on offer, with four main areas appearing on the agenda: Emergency Lighting, Smart Lighting, Workplace Lighting, and the Lightspace Festival – Architectural Lighting Design. All of these topics form part of our everyday business goals and interests, making this event unmissable.
Here are just a few of our top takeaways from the two-day festival.
The future of the workplace
The recent overhaul of the workplace as we know it was highlighted in the How to light to the WELL v2™ pilot standard panel. Following a presentation about the latest WELL standards and how this had stepped up from version one, the speakers shared interesting points about recent and potential changes to our office spaces.
Arup’s Pete Mardell raised the idea of lighting for homeworkers being a potential section in future guidelines, to accommodate the increase in people needing to create safe and comfortable working environments in their homes. Meanwhile, Robyn Goldstein (HLB Lighting Design) explained the likely shift in office spaces becoming known as “touchdown points” in the coming future, where people will be briefly stopping for collaborative purposes, rather than spending large amounts of time in individual workstations.
Time to replace the lumen?
Looking into lighting standards as we know them, Lighting Educator Kit Cuttle shared his ideas on replacing the lumen as the “one size fits all” measurement of everyday light, and instead working from a system of measurements which take into account the variety of lighting applications and the environment they are placed in.
While acknowledging that updating standards within the lighting industry is a long and somewhat tricky process, he encourages practitioners to reconsider how they see lighting and explains that the aim is to provide lighting which relates to providing the best positive response to a specific space, rather than just being based on current numerical figures. Do you put the same care into both your home and workplace lighting, and how do you manage these individually?
Smart Cities
Lara Jiad, from WSP, provided an insightful presentation about smart cities, offering the eye-opening statistic that by 2030, 90% of UK citizens will be living in urban spaces. We therefore need to prepare to facilitate this, with smart cities taking centre stage as a solution.
However, with barriers such as ageing infrastructure, limited budgets and austerity, Jiad outlined the issues that need to be overcome by local councils, showing that while smart cities are such an integral part of our futures, it’s important to understand the level of change required to get there.
Overall, there was a noticeable theme of change reflected throughout this event, representing the changes we have adapted to this year, both in our industry and across the globe. We truly enjoyed LuxLive’s fresh take on their lighting event and look forward to seeing what next year’s show brings.
