We had a great week over here at Lights Online! On Tuesday, we guest hosted #ColorChat and showcased a great selection of colorful lighting. We also got some input about the past, present and future of lighting from Quoizel and wrapped up our collaboration with Inspired LED by looking at lighting for the great outdoors. This week, a lot of my design inspirations links focus on how LED lighting continues to change the world around us, but there are also spotlights on some really cool spaces like park pavilions, airport terminals, hotels and libraries!
magdas Hotel
from Design Milk
This is magdas Hotel, a unique new hotel located in Vienna with a wonderful concept. Sure, it provides guest rooms for tourists, but it also helps young refugees escape terrible situations in their home countries. 25 young refugees live in the hotel and work there, getting on their feet and rebuilding their lives in a new country. Crowdfunding and generous donations helped build and outfit the hotel in a thoughtful, colorful yet minimalist way. I really like the room shown here, but there are lots of other great spaces to see.
Nanoleaf Gem
from Design Milk
This LED light bulb takes “shine bright like a diamond” literally. This is the Nanoleaf Gem, which has a frosted and faceted look that’s meant to resemble a diamond. It comes in two versions–a 40 watt equivalent and a 60 watt equivalent. Both of these versions use a fraction of the wattage to create the glow, though, which is just one of many benefits of going LED. Also featured in the article about the Gem is the Bloom, another Nanoleaf design. It has a radically different appearance that puts the diodes front and center, studding the bulb like a punk rocker’s belt. It has a neat function where it can dim just by using a standard light switch instead of a dimmer. It only has 4 settings (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%), so it’s not as fine-tuned as using a dimmer, but still pretty neat.
CityTouch
from Gizmodo
Los Angeles recently completed the largest streetlight upgrade in the world, changing 140,000 lights over to LED. Now it’ll be easier than ever for the city’s street lighting department to care for these new lights thanks to the Philips CityTouch system. This allows for dimming and brightening lights, as well as more instantaneous alerts of broken lights, from a centralized hub. What’s even cooler is that LA is also using a connector node that will allow any streetlight to get on the CityTouch system–even if it’s not a Philips product. Gizmodo imagines a few nice uses for the system: dim streetlights around office buildings on weekends, brighten up the lights on a specific block that is busy, dim the entire city’s lights during a full moon to save energy, use the maintenance function to find broken lights after an earthquake. Plus, the different color temperature of the LED light, and its increased brightness, makes people feel safer and has reduced crime by 10 percent!
Borden Park Pavilion
from Dezeen
Can you see the building in the photo? It’s a drum-shaped structure and its exterior is made of mirrored panels so it blends into the surroundings. Located in Edmonton’s Borden Park, this drum contains bathrooms, vending machines and a comfy place to sit. The design is also meant to pay homage to a bandstand and carousel that used to be on this site. At night, the design becomes a little more obvious because they turn on strip lights that outline the circular core. No matter the time of day, this is a stylish place to take a break and get a snack!
Narita Airport Terminal 3
from Spoon & Tamago
One important thing to do ahead of hosting the Olympics is to improve your transportation infrastructure. Atlanta did this ahead of the 1996 Games and now Tokyo is looking to 2020 with the new Terminal 3 at Narita Airport. Built specifically to serve low-cost airlines, they didn’t skimp on interesting design even though they saved money by not installing moving sidewalks or illuminated signs. Instead, there’s a blue and red padded running track that serves as the central walkway. Blue means departures and red means arrivals in this design that’s meant to be easily navigable no matter what language you speak. A black and white design has more color added by comfy-looking furnishings and a woody food court area.
Say My Name
from Contemporist
I associate the term “Say My Name” with an excellent Destiny’s Child song from back in the 90s, but now there’s a new light collection that’s going to create a new association. Designed by Norway’s Morten & Jonas for Northern Lighting, Say My Name is a pendant and table lamp made from hand-blown Venetian glass. Its big bold design has a subtle yet striking purple hue that gradually gets darker and smokier for a look meant to evoke fjords, calm water and Norwegian night skies.
Library Building Awards winners
from Curbed
Libraries continue to step up their style game as they evolve to meet the changing needs of their communities. These 6 libraries were just given awards for their innovative designs! I like how the Cedar Rapids library rebuilt beautifully after a terrible flood damaged the old building, how a Brutalist college library has become bright and inviting and the stunning ceiling of the Slover Library (pictured), but all 6 award-winners are impressive.
Luce Naga
from Design Milk
Who knew a snake could lead to something so stunning? This is a light from the Luce Naga collection by Scarlet Splendour, a design studio founded by siblings. Aww! Luce Naga lights are made from Italian ceramic in white or gold finish, then topped off with hand-blown glass covers to shield the LED light sources. Luce Naga’s look is inspired by the way a snake moves.
1 Hotel & Homes South Beach
from Curbed Miami
This new hotel in Miami is the first of its kind, a luxurious yet sustainable getaway that has all sorts of ingenious little features. For example, room keys are made from reclaimed wood, hangers are made from recycled paper, the ‘do not disturb’ signs are repurposed from the boxes that were used to ship the hotel’s supplies and so on. The airy design showcases a white, blue and natural theme with lots of plants and wood. Because it’s Miami, there are expansive outdoor lounging spaces. As these photos from Curbed Miami show, the rooms also have some cool lighting effects, including energy-efficient LED tape light that makes it look like the beds are floating in midair.
SnapPower Charger
from Core77
Do you charge things via USB? Do you have a USB charger that uses one of your power outlets? This smart Kickstarter design aims to change that. SnapPower Charger is an outlet cover that has a little bump at the bottom with a USB port on the side, so you can plug things into the other two slots more efficiently. No rewiring is required to install SnapPower Charger, either! It has prongs that takes an amp of power from the existing outlet to use for USB charging. The initial request on Kickstarter was for $35,000. The current funding amount is a little over $610,000.
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