Application of LED in landscape lighting of buildings

(Last Updated On: May 24, 2020)

LED has been widely used in landscape lighting, especially in buildings as the main body of the city, playing a role in beautifying the night scene.

At present, LED has begun to be popularized in the field of urban nightview lighting in China, almost all major cities in the country have widely used LED for nightview lighting.In particular, China took the opportunity of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and 2010 Shanghai world expo to promote the application of semiconductor in urban landscape lighting, which will further promote the wider use of LED in China’s urban lighting field.However, we should see that quite a few cities do not understand the characteristics of LED in terms of night lighting.There are many mistakes in the design, construction, maintenance and management of nightview lighting, resulting in poor effect and low evaluation of LED in urban nightview lighting.In particular, some abuse of LED has damaged the aesthetic sense of urban night view and caused negative effects, which has LED to some people’s doubts about the use of LED in urban night view lighting and affected the reputation of LED in urban night view lighting. If not solved in time, it will certainly affect the healthy development of China’s LED industrial chain.

1. Requirements for landscape lighting of buildings

Buildings are the most constituent elements of a city, such as residential, commercial, school, hospital, office, sports, cinema, exhibition buildings and some industrial buildings, etc. These buildings mainly have Chinese and western traditional style, modern style and national style, etc. Landscape lighting should understand the architectural characteristics of the object to be illuminated.

For the lighting of buildings, the code requirements of urban landscape lighting design are:

A. Full consideration should be given to the direction of light projection, the position of the lamp, the direction of viewing, and the material of the object being illuminated, so as to achieve beautiful, safe and comfortable.

B. According to the building surface color scientific and reasonable use of color light, using color light should pay attention to the building surface color, the surrounding environment should be coordinated.

The following principles should be followed when choosing lighting methods:

A. Lighting needs to highlight the key parts, should choose a variety of forms of local key lighting, local key lighting should pay attention to the characteristics of light and shadow, brightness and light color and the harmony of the whole building facade.

B. If the perak curtain wall and the building with a large area of light transmittance outside the facade, it is advisable to choose internal light transmittance lighting. When using internal light transmittance lighting, the brightness and color of internal light and ambient light should be coordinated to prevent light pollution caused by internal light transmittance

C. When conditions permit, it can adopt architectural nightview lighting. When using this lighting method, attention should be paid to the close cooperation between the architect and the lighting design.

D. If necessary, it can comprehensively use flood lighting, outline lighting, internal transmittance lighting, local key lighting, architectural lighting and more than two lighting methods in special lighting on single or group buildings.The use of comprehensive lighting should distinguish the main and secondary lighting, pay attention to the mutual cooperation of various lighting methods and the overall effect of the night scene formed.

According to these requirements, the landscape lighting of buildings puts forward two requirements to us, one is how to illuminate buildings, the other is how architects consider architectural design.

1.1 How should the building be landscaped

In the night lighting, it is necessary to understand the characteristics, functions, styles, decorative materials, surrounding environment and social, historical and cultural connotations of the illuminated objects, as well as the architect’s creative and design expression intention, owner’s requirements and so on.According to the characteristics of the illuminated objects and the surrounding environment, it is advisable to combine various lighting methods organically, highlight the key points and give consideration to the overall image. At the same time, the lighting facilities should not destroy the visual image of the city in daytime.Chromatic light has intense affection color, want careful to use chromatic light in nocturnal scene illume. The principles of using color light are as follows: color light is in harmony with the function of building (structure) and color of finishing materials of building (structure);The colored light harmonizes with the hue and features of the surrounding environment.Illumination direction should avoid people’s line of sight to prevent glare; night lighting should be controlled to the sky and residential Windows to reduce the level of light pollution.Brightness and color should be reasonably determined according to the use function, architectural style, structural characteristics, surface material texture and the effect in night lighting of the illuminated object.It is necessary to analyze the use function, architectural style, structural characteristics, architectural characteristics, cultural connotation, color and reflection of surface materials to determine the appropriate lighting mode.

1.2 How should architects think about building design

In order to enrich the image of buildings at night, it is suggested that the following factors should be considered in the structural design of buildings, especially high-rise buildings:

A. Elevation as far as possible has some concave and convex, line and so on processing, as far as possible avoids the entire flat gable, the gable processing some may conceal installs the luminaire the modelling, specially in the gable middle upper part sets some may install the lamp the component, may divide the lamplight illuminate the distance to reach the middle upper part.

B. If the outer edge of the wall is the place where the facade lighting is often processed, also should consider some transverse concave and convex decorative lines so that the lamps and lanterns can be installed (it is best to hide lamps and lanterns).

C. The front elevation (non-gable elevation) is the focus of the lighting treatment, with large area Windows, etc.If it is a house, it is generally forbidden to use high-power projection lamp, so as not to cause light pollution to the house, but if there is no light, the image of the building will be affected at night.Therefore, the design of the building should consider both the position of the lamp can illuminate the building, and do not let the light into the window.It is suggested to deal with some vertical grooves in the structural design of elevation. If the house can set hutch to defend concave slightly more put aside a little bit of solid metope or decorative line and so on for lamplight processing.

D. The balcony of front elevation or side elevation of the residence, the awning of window and its outside edge also should consider the place that has the possibility to install small power lamp or gurney lamp.

E. Building top treatment is the focus of architectural landscape lighting, but also the urban landscape is a very important light carrier. Nor does it generally have a negative impact on households or people. The light on lamplight processing is used to emphasize more, brightness is higher commonly also, the modelling when building design should be a few richer, consider to hide lamps and lanterns to do not make its expose as far as possible at the same time.

F. Glass curtain wall is another difficulty of landscape lighting, it is forbidden to cast light, and should be treated with internal light transmission.Developed countries usually do not turn off the lights at night, the whole building in nature is pervious to light, but our country’s level of economic development and energy supply is also cannot completely meet the requirements of the pervious to light, according to China’s actual economic condition and also to make the building beautiful night, generally USES in the internal installation of glass curtain wall or the window light, or out of the window for some point, the line light source.Therefore, the building facade structure design should take into account the actual situation, can be appropriate to consider the installation of point-like linear light source.

G. Attention to remind the electrical professional to consider the landscape lighting load on the building, the glass curtain wall or public building multi-window building reserved for the transmission of electricity or wiring.

2. Problems of LED in landscape lighting of buildings

2.1 Idolatry — period of distrust — period of neutral knowledge

When LED was first used in landscape lighting, its widely publicized advantages such as high efficiency, energy saving and long life were warmly accepted by the society with a mysterious vision and widely used in landscape lighting.Due to many technical links brought by a series of very complicated processes, such as chip material packaging, component lighting production, and installation and application of landscape lighting engineering, the quality of LED is affected.These important technical aspects are ignored by the media and commercial marketing campaigns.When the society thinks that LED can solve all the problems of landscape lighting, the quality in practical engineering reduces the usage of landscape lighting.With the continuous improvement of LED quality, LED has many advantages that some other light sources do not have, such as energy saving, environmental protection, long life, rich color, fast start, flexible and varied combination, etc., as long as properly used, it can fully show the beauty in landscape lighting.At present, people’s confidence in LED is gradually strengthening, we call it the neutral trust period, that is, trust and doubt coexist.This raises a red flag for the LED industry. Only by drawing and consolidating the quality of LED lighting products can we continue to expand the influence of LED on landscape lighting application and maintain the trust of the society on LED landscape lighting.

2.2 Landscape lighting LED product quality varies

Uneven quality of LED products for landscape lighting is still an important aspect that will cause serious damage to the LED industry in a quite long period of time.Some units spend a huge amount of money to use LED landscape lighting, ten days and half a month will have some problems, not the outline line is broken but is abnormal color change or some other problems, so that the owners often have to find the construction unit maintenance, become a burden.

2.3 Landscape lighting using LED design method improper

This is a common problem that has been around for a long time.It is common to use LED in city night lighting (especially in some big cities).Due to the fact that some night view designers do not really understand the performance of LED, they do not use LED in large quantities in the night view lighting design according to the characteristics, functions and specific environment of the illuminated objects, attached carriers.As a result, some cities only rely on LED for night lighting, which leads to the appearance of a single way to shape night scenery and monotonous night scenery image, which fails to achieve the aesthetic feeling due to urban night scenery.Some in the government office building on the glass curtain wall of the matrix full cloth method, change a variety of patterns, light flashing shape dynamic and gorgeous color, was considered as a place of entertainment. Some in the hospital building and the surrounding environment, office buildings, residential buildings and residential areas with LED linear, dot light flash, colorful variety dazzling. Some in the important building gable, top with LED in addition to add some component modeling composition pattern, during the day to destroy the architectural style, at night to change the architectural form. There are also some places in the university area, static overflow area light color change LED, strange, causing serious color light pollution. Some use a lot of high brightness leds in low background brightness to create glare with too much contrast. Some use colored led near traffic lights to create the illusion of traffic signals for drivers and pedestrians, etc. These incorrect designs have given rise to a misjudgment of LED itself, which makes some cities lose confidence in the use of LED in night view and affects the development of LED in the field of urban night view lighting.

2.4 There are still problems in the construction, supervision and later maintenance of landscape lighting using LED

The application of LED in landscape lighting engineering should be the same as other projects in construction, supervision and later operation and maintenance.During the construction period from the purchase of LED products to the construction operation, a series of management mechanisms including effective quality review, project supervision and operation maintenance should be carried out, and a complete project construction operation management system should be established.Landscape lighting is mostly outdoor, facing all kinds of extreme temperature problems.There is a huge difference in temperature between north and south of China. There are environmental differences of 40 degrees below zero to 40 degrees above zero. There are dry areas and wet areas.A series of problems such as sunlight, wind sand and rain are a severe test for landscape lighting with LED. Some super high-rise buildings or structures landscape lighting fixtures replacement difficulties, need a set of strict product quality, project quality operation and maintenance management system, in order to ensure the use of LED in landscape lighting credibility.

3. Application method of LED in landscape lighting of buildings

The correct application of LED landscape lighting in buildings is a problem we must pay attention to. LED buried lights, underwater lights, emergency lights, garden lights, all kinds of sign lights, LED local projection lights, LED line light source lights, LED point light source lights, etc., play a great role in enhancing and coloring urban landscape lighting. Especially LED color is good, relatively little energy consumption, relatively long life, low voltage use safety, no pollution, good impact and shock resistance, small size and easy to hide, suitable for the principle of night lighting without lights, etc., all of these provide optional for the use of night lighting. However, night lighting must be selected according to the characteristics of LED.In terms of design, some buildings, such as gables and nape of buildings, need a large area of projection light or show its structural form. We should carefully choose LED, and compare whether LED has the advantage of floodlight lighting. LED should also be used carefully in places that need wide beam Angle and long transmission distance. Whether the current LED lamps can meet this requirement should be considered. LED is suitable for transmitting light with small outline, point light source or matrix combination pattern in glass curtain wall, commercial places, places or carriers that need dynamic change and rich colors. For example, some buildings at night are suitable for other light sources and LED to cooperate with each other, which can foil the advantages of LED. large to affect the daytime landscape of the building. At this time, LED lighting can be used, which is small in size and easy to conceal, which is the advantage that other light sources don’t have.At present, there are also some high-power LED projection lamps, but due to the radiator reason, the lamps are too heavy, not suitable for the building outside for flood lighting.

These factors should be taken into account in urban landscape lighting management and design. In the review of the night view design scheme on the strict examination of the design, the design can not give full play to the advantages of LED night view scheme had better not use. In the implementation, the purchase of LED night view with strict quality control, strict control of LED product import. Strict project supervision system shall be implemented in the construction process. Those who do not meet the construction and installation specifications and requirements must be corrected to prevent non-standard construction and installation behaviors. After the completion of construction, the acceptance system shall be strictly implemented and acceptance shall be conducted in accordance with the standard.In the use of LED night project to establish the operation and maintenance system, with the corresponding maintenance personnel, good operation, maintenance and peacetime inspection records, once found problems, to timely maintenance and discharge, so that the use of LED landscape lighting project always maintain a normal operation state, to maintain the reputation of LED in landscape lighting.

LED is used for urban landscape lighting. In particular, landscape lighting for urban buildings has shown its strong advantages. LED has the advantages of energy saving, safety, environmental protection, rich color, long life, small size, short response time and so on, which is very suitable for urban architecture landscape lighting.