Illuminating our lives
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Effective and efficient lighting is the work of this professor.
On the subject of saving energy, architect Fred Oberkircher is something of an expert. But the director of TCU’s Center for Lighting Education, new president of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), and board member of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) Education Trust won’t give up his chandelier. He bristles at the thought of hanging an energy-sparing fluorescent lamp over his dining room table. There are times, he says, “When only a chandelier will do.”
The fluorescent light saves energy, but its light is white and cold and its fixture, to say the least, uninspired. The chandelier, on the other hand, its incandescent bulbs mimicking candlepower, emits a yellow sparkle that spells comfort, warmth and cheer. “That sparkle may be just as important to us as saving energy,” says Oberkircher. He is convinced that we can have both.
It’s going to take some original thinking about lighting, however, to keep them. As he takes over the job of president of the IES, a century-old organization dedicated to “promoting the art and science of quality lighting,” Oberkircher will be thinking more about how to create aesthetically pleasing yet sustainable designs. He promises that it won’t mean having to change every fixture.
“We need to take a more integrated approach to energy conservation. Instead of legislators raising their hands to affirm that they can cut energy costs by 10 percent, they need to think about what ‘cutting energy usage’ means in practical terms. If we allow ourselves to be only legislatively driven, factors such health and aesthetics will be eliminated.”
Oberkircher brings up the example of the Arkansas House, an amazingly energy efficient house built in the ’70’s with reduced square footage and almost no windows. “It was a disaster. Nobody wanted to live in it.”
Compare that, he says, with the new New York Times building, which staff members say is a delight to work in. It’s using 70 percent less than the energy it was predicted to, and it purposely did not seek LEED (the U.S. Green Building Council’s rating for energy-efficient building) certification. The Times spokesman said that the idea was more about making “a great environment for our employees” than simply adhering to LEED.
This is the kind of new thinking that Oberkircher means: making our spaces as efficient as we can, yet still livable. Technology wedded to design is the key, with integrated lighting controls, occupancy sensors in rooms that turn lights off when nobody is in them, and daylighting, the use of windows, light tubes and skylights to bring the sun in and light rooms naturally.
As president of IES, Oberkircher will be proposing a “qualitative lighting metric” that he hopes will influence the public and members alike. New energy codes would have households limit lighting to one watt per square foot. He explains that designers should move to using “benefits/square foot” instead of “watts/square foot.” This might mean using that chandelier for an hour a day only, but at least we get to choose the balance of lighting.
Oberkircher, who graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in architecture from Penn State, has always been “fascinated by light and color.” But he didn’t see how to bring them into his life until 1992, his 20th anniversary of teaching at TCU. He began to wonder what was next for him. “I was teaching design lighting, but in a way that most people did in interior design. I hadn’t done terribly much, and I wasn’t especially thrilled.”
What did thrill him was something he was doing in his free time: taking TCU professor Mike Skinner’s theater lighting class. Oberkircher’s “Damascus moment” occurred as the keen cyclist was biking along on the south side of Fort Worth. “I was daydreaming and wondering what to do with myself and my career, and suddenly it came to me. I had to pull over.”
Oberkircher saw the light, and he followed it. By 1996 he was teaching an additional lighting course. In two years, he pushed lighting at TCU from one class to an 18 hour minor, and parlayed a $20,000 Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education into $150,000. In 1998, TCU’s Center for Lighting Education was born.
The lighting minor in interior design teaches retail, theater and architectural lighting in an interdisciplinary program allowing hands on work. Although lighting is both an art and a science, Oberkircher never forgets its visual pull. When students are able to manipulate light, to see how light will work in their designs, “they go berserk,” says Oberkircher. “You can see the joy in their faces.”
This spring, Oberkircher will be spreading the joy of light throughout the country. A former president of the International Association of Lighting Designers, he’s now a board member of the IALD’s educational trust. To help educators understand that with beginning level students “it’s more important to emphasize the quality of light than the science of light,” he has designed an affordable, portable teaching device.
The colored lighting system, “a tool, not a text,” should be a boon to educators. Small enough to fit into a pizza box, it will allow practical experience in how light makes space in architectural models look. The device, which the IALD will be offering to lighting educators in the U.S. very soon, uses a LED flashlight, colored gels and a fiber optic bundle.
“It’s less about talking, and more about doing in the classroom,” he says. But Oberkircher knows that talk is what needs to happen in the industry. It’s his job as president of IES to know the state of lighting in the United States, how new lighting code will affect lighting designers, manufacturers, and the public, and how to share that information. His most important task will be “to communicate the goals of the organization in a way that is relevant” to all 11,000 members.
Relevance is relative, unfortunately. When your company is struggling with mergers, a sloth-like economy, not getting products delivered, you won’t be that interested in new lighting research. Yet, says Oberkircher, now may be the time for the lighting industry to come together with researchers.
“A review of the ‘hot’ topics in lighting suggests that funding is moving to issues such as non-visual effects, solid-state lighting, and energy-reduction efforts.” It could be argued that these are not “true” lighting areas. Sure, says Oberkircher, “chrono-biology, solid-state electronics, and nano-engineering are all areas on the far, far periphery of lighting as we typically think of it.” But that seems to be where the artificial dawn is breaking.
On Oberkircher’s horizon, the light is always blue. Since giving a talk at LightFair International in 1998 entitled “15 Ways to Give Blue Light,” he’s been fascinated with it. Not long after that talk, Oberkircher read of a discovery of a third “eye,” a photoreceptor that is not a rod or a cone, but a retinal ganglion cell that is most sensitive to blue light.
This ancient photoreceptor sends signals, not to the vision part of the brain, but to the pineal gland, where it seems to synchronize our circadian systems. Blue light has huge implications, says Oberkircher, for health. He is terribly excited about the holistic integration of light with vision and health.
“Consider that sleep disruption is the number one issue for the elderly. Consider that sleeping aids are the number one prescription medication sold today. Then consider that both of these are issues on which circadian rhythm/light — a non-visual effect — has significant impact.”
People are becoming much more interested in the health and energy issues involved in lighting choices. From Oberkircher’s point of view, it’s both fascinating and prudent to keep up with the technology about atmospheric theater lighting, energy efficient businesses and homes, incandescent chandeliers and the blue light that transmits wake-up calls to our ancient invisible eye.
His advice? “Don’t be in the dark. But don’t forget to turn the light out when you leave.”
Contact Oberkircher at f.oberkircher@tcu.edu.
Comment at tcumagazine@tcu.edu.
Fred Oberkircher is an associate professor of merchandising and textiles. He earned his bachelor’s degree and his master’s degree in architecture at Pennsylvania State University. He is the director of the TCU Center for Lighting Education. He is the vice president for technical and research of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and serves on the board of International Association of Lighting Designers Education Trust. He has been at TCU since 1974, where the classes he teaches include architectural components, design and lighting.
