At Light & Building, LightFair, and LEDucation, EdisonReport/designing lighting (dl) magazine usually has a booth which works out great as it gives your humble editor a homebase for meetings and discussions. In Dubai, at Light Middle East, I had no booth and I found it quite freeing as it allowed me much more time to participate in education and to visit the many exhibitors.
The following are three trends that I noticed. They may not be new to our audience, but they were new to me:
- Sergio Padula, Technical Director at iGuzzini, first mentioned a new language of light ushering in the decline of the minimalist approach. He talked about luminaires that say “Look at Me” . This was the first time I had heard this new language and I heard similar statements from other manufacturers and designers.
- Energy efficiency, i.e. lumens per watt, really is a given and almost irrelevant. As I listened to product pitches and visited booths, the conversation was much more about water-based paint, cardboard and no glue. The circular economy reminds me of IoT five years ago.
- Muntasar Pocha, Sales Manager – UAE & Kuwait for Zumtobel discussed the Monza method which is based on the relationship colors and the human system of perception. Through the controlled changes amid combining different spectral distribution curves, particular pigments can be better perceived by the human eye. In essence, designers use multiple color temperatures in museums to light the same piece of art. I had heard of this before an this from Steven Rosen of Available Light. Pocha says that, typically for strong warm colors in a painting, a designer will specify 3000K whereas for cooler colors in the same painting, 4000K is preferred. I discussed this with a few designers and manufacturers at the show and it is much more popular than I initially realized.