Lighting Project In DC Wins 2011 GE Edison Award

GE Lighting presented its 2011 GE Edison Award on May 8, 2012 for a lighting design project carried out at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. A personalized Steuben crystal award was presented in Las Vegas, NV to Glenn Heinmiller, Paul Zaferiou, and Dan Weissman of Lam Partners located in Cambridge, MA for their work on the project.

The United States Institute of Peace

Now in its 29th year, this annual lighting design competition is open to those lighting professionals who creatively employ significant use of GE light sources (lamps and/or LEDs) in a lighting design project completed during the previous calendar year.

The Winning Design Project
The first permanent home of the United States Institute of Peace is located near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. The translucent wing-like roofs that connect the building’s three curving sections presented the most challenging lighting problem: to light the roofs with no visible sources so they glow softly both inside and outside. A pervasive lighting theme, featuring GE T5 fluorescent lamps, is present throughout the building. Light sources are fully concealed or designed to disappear, revealing and animating, but not competing with the architecture.

The roofs are comprised of an outer diffusing glass and an inner white membrane, with structure sandwiched between the two layers. Forward-throw cove fixtures, with 54-watt T5 3000K fluorescent lamps, are mounted in the tops of walls to light the roofs. This single lighting layer provides both the interior ambient lighting and the exterior surface glow. Above uppermost windows, necklaces of matching adjustable monopoints with 37-watt Precise™ IR MR16 halogen lamps and 39-watt ConstantColor® CMH® PAR20 lamps provide supplemental downlighting. In-grade ceramic metal halide adjustable fixtures illuminate the roof’s overhang, extending the glow outside to the roof’s lowest point.

Perimeter offices are fully daylighted, and the clerestories bring daylight into the corridors. Additionally, T5 fluorescent strips with 21-watt T5 3000 K lamps are integrated continuously into the curving base of the clerestories to indirectly light both the offices and corridors. Each office has a custom T5 pendant with shielding, designed to block views into the fixtures from outside or from within the atria.

A central lighting control system employs occupancy sensing, daylight sensing scheduling, and local preset scene control. The project is LEED Gold certified.

A panel of five judges selected this year’s winning entry for its superiority in: functional excellence; architectural compatibility; effective use of state-of-the-art lighting products and techniques; appropriate color, form, and texture revelation; energy effectiveness; and cost-effectiveness. The judges were:

  • Tanas S. T. AlKhoury, Light Concept LLC, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • Wendi Bertelsen, LC, LEED® GA, GE Lighting, Glen Allen, Virginia, USA
  • Ross A. De Alessi, IALD, MIES, Ross De Alessi Lighting Design, Seattle, Washington, USA
  • David Ghatan, IALD, MIES, LC, C. M. Kling & Associates, Inc., Alexandria, Virginia, USA
  • Ion Luh, IALD Assoc., Consullux Lighting Consultants, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The United States Institute of Peace project was one of three Awards of Excellence finalists. The other Awards of Excellence winners are:

  • Cornell University, Milstein Hall (Ithaca, NY) designed by Suzan Tillotson and Christopher Cheap of Tillotson Design Associates (New York, NY)
  • Museum of the Bavarian Kings (Hohenschwangau, Germany) designed by Andreas Schulz, Malte Simon and Thomas Möritz of Licht Kunst Licht AG (Bonn, Germany & Berlin, Germany)

Also presented at the GE Edison Awards ceremony in Las Vegas were five Awards of Merit, one Award for Environmental Design, one Award for Residential Design, and two Special Citations. The projects include: Confidential Trading Company, Chicago, IL (Merit); University of Arizona Likins and Arbol de la Vida Residence Halls, Tucson, AZ (Environmental Design); and Ogden High School Auditorium Restoration, Ogden, UT (Special Citation).

Information on all the projects can be found on the GE Lighting website.


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