LED Architectural Lighting: A Practical Guide
TCP has built a business meeting the demands of architectural lighting projects.
While the term “Architectural Lighting” seems finite, it can apply to any type of lighting fixture that’s used in a building or architectural project of any sort.
With this in mind, it’s better to talk about what architectural lighting isn’t: simply throwing light into a space for the sake of illumination.
Buildings, facilities, department stores, schools, and industrial centers all have intended functions. That function can be supported or undermined by lighting fixtures chosen to fill in.
But choosing the correct lighting is not just about look and feel. Correct lighting selection includes real-world factors, like energy consumption, warmth of light, lumens, rebates, and the overall impact of electrical load.
While many lighting needs (cavernous warehouses, sprawling office complexes) may look the same, operational variables such as energy rebates and supplier expenses, make them different.
It is for these real-world reasons that TCP provides a vast assortment of bulbs as well as complete architectural layout services. If you know the bulbs you need and just want specs, you can find them on every one of our bulbs.
Creating Mood and Cutting Costs with LED Lighting
Before the lighting revolution brought on by LED’s, creating specific moods in multi-use spaces was incredibly costly.
Consider the lighting demands of a modern church, with their vast open worship spaces.
Church lighting requires both soft, intimate light as well as high lumen, high bay lighting solutions for clear visibility. And then there’s the lighting needed for on stage productions, music, and holiday events!
Consider the effort a church must deploy to replace just one flickering linear lighting CFL tube set 30 ft above the congregation on a Sunday morning service.
Creating a mood carries a real cost. Switching out the most used lighting systems in favor of LED lighting not only creates instant energy savings (recurring monthly) it also cuts down on the resources needed to maintain them.
TCP created a lighting program called TCP Pro for precisely this reason. TCP Pro is our commercial lighting focused program that provides total lighting change-out solutions to help you switch from traditional lighting to energy efficient LED lights with zero loss in mood and tone for your space.
Benefits of Architectural LED Design Lighting
The utilization of LED design lighting in your commercial space has multiple advantages:
1). Design Spaces with Fewer Limitations
Lower voltage does not mean lower light, or less versatility.
LED light can do everything a traditional light can do except take up as much space! This removes architectural design restrictions when planning placements for lighting, like plenum space, conduit locations, or ceiling height, or insulation contact concerns.
If your commercial lighting needs include “streamlined,” “clean,” and “flush,” then LED lighting is your solution.
LED flat panels take up far less space than their CFL linear panel light equivalents. LED downlighting and their accompanying drivers are much smaller and give off far less heat.
If you’re retrofitting an existing traditional lighting gird, you can increase the overall lumens available while reducing the energy consumption!
Regardless of whether you are hoping to diminish your carbon footprint, wonderfully show certain highlights of your space or are simply hoping to save money on energy costs, a change to LED lights is the most ideal approach.
LED lighting solutions can create the same, if not superior impact on your space that traditional lighting does. In fact, in most cases, LED lighting allows you to put more lights on the same circuit.
2). Simple to Retrofit Your Existing Lighting System
TCP understands there is a real expense to replacing existing fixtures with new. That’s why TCP makes a myriad of LED bulbs that can retrofit into existing fixtures. Often the capital required for a complete fixture change is possible, making LED lamp changes more economical.
A common question when switching traditional lighting to LED’s is, “do LED’s have the same lumens and warmth as my traditional lights?”
The answer: Yes! And so much more.
LEDs lighting used to lack the projection power of traditional lights. Not anymore. Today, LED lighting matches traditional lighting in color and tone, while providing superior clarity, and instant-on.
What’s more is there is no complicated procedure for switching out your lighting. If you can install a traditional light fixture or bulb, you can install LEDs bulb equivalents without changing your existing fixtures.
TCP makes LED retrofits kits that are architecturally pleasing, dimmable, and lighter than their traditional lighting alternatives. This includes applications such as linear lighting, track lighting, high bay and sky bay.
3). Using LED Architectural Lighting is Safe and Environmentally Friendly
The simple fact that LED lights do not produce heat makes them safe for numerous applications where a traditional heat producing bulb would be a fire hazard. These bulbs also integrate a unique heat sink to dissipate any residual heat production from the lamps themselves, making them a far safer option for the home or office than a traditional or halogen bulb.
Additionally, while many commercial lighting projects factor in lighting expense, energy expense, and flexibility, the components used in creating the light—like toxic gases—are often overlooked.
However, cutting out toxic lighting elements makes handling and replacing lighting less dangerous, and gets the project closer to Green certified. Because of the hazardous nature of mercury, it has to be disposed of in a controlled and certified manner. LEDs, on the other hand, can be thrown in a recycle bin when they reach the end of their lifespan.
4). Provide Aesthetic Appeal with Greater Versatility
One of the very best reasons to use LED architectural lighting is simply for the aesthetic appeal that they provide.
The light cast by LEDs is unadulterated and brilliant and is nearer to copying genuine daylight than some other accessible lighting. LED lighting has superior CRI, which means the colors in your space render more true to their actual color.
Additionally, while many fixtures are built around the bulbs ability to light a space, fixtures built around LED’s can take on smaller, more dynamic sizes, including everything from tape to sharp, ultra-thin geometric designs.
LED bulbs are available in a variety of colors and temperatures to suit any interior design element or architectural demand. Regardless of whether you are searching for accent lights, floodlights, recessed or mounted slim bulbs to supplant a fluorescent, there are LED lights accessible that will fit directly into most standard lighting equipment.
TCP offers a total, end-to-end commercial lighting solution.
TCP understands sourcing and installing the right commercial lighting from start to finish. That’s why, from the first design consultation to the post-project follow-up, we’re there, offering our expertise, helping you capitalize on efficiency rebates, and ensuring your commercial lighting project turns on.
But seeing is believing. That’s why we’re offering free samples of any of our lights. That’s right — we’re so sure we’re the right solution for your commercial lighting needs, we’ll give you lights so you can see how good TCP is for yourself.
Just tell us about your lighting application and we’ll send you free sample products to test. No strings attached.
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