February 4 -Prof Marc Fontoynont Talk

I found Professor Marc Fontoynont's talk to be provocative and refreshing due to his European perspective and research on daylighting and lighting design. As stringent as our lighting energy codes are here in the US and especially here in Seattle, it was refreshing to hear Marc talk about some of the radical LPD reductions being proposed for countries in Europe. His research on occupant lighting use and how daylight modifies lighting use was fascinating. He is doing physical and computer models on the next generation of lighting systems that will meet the new European standards and part of this research has found that lighting use can actually increase at 9ft - 15ft from the window due to the need to compensate for daylight shadowing on the work surface. He went on to talk about the total-cost-of-ownership for lighting systems. His work on developing standards for LED systems, especially as it relates to color rendering, was equally fascinating. His studies found that people preferred color attractiveness (vibrancy) over naturalness. But what really excited me were the lighting projects done by his lighting consultant firm Ingelux (http://www.ingelux.com/). From their comprehensive daylighting and lighting work done for lighting the Mono Lisa, to upgrading the lighting at the Eiffel Tower, it was all incredibly impressive. I appreciated that he also shared images of the Lyon, France annual light festival "Fête des Lumières" which he has supported and participated in for years. Overall, this was a world class lighting presenter with a unique perspective on a vast range of lighting issues.