Why Do Smart Buildings Matter To Lighting Designers?

The global market for smart buildings is expected to surge past $32 billion within the next four years. That represents an astounding 33.7 percent compound annual growth rate.

Which brings up the question: What’s your opportunity during this building boom? Why do smart buildings matter more than ever to you and other lighting designers?

Dollars tell only part of the story. The chief takeaway is how this “smart building rush” positions the lighting designer as a central player in how organizations realize the full potential of smart building technology. That begins with a comprehensive response to the oft-cited 3-30-300 Total Cost of Occupancy Calculator. That calculator expresses the annual cost of utilities, rent, and payroll on a square foot basis, and it represents the basis of what a smart building is. Smart buildings are buildings that share data and leverage their technology to create efficiencies in energy, space-use and people. And, most importantly for lighting designers, it points out that staff expenses (the 300 part), account for the vast bulk of occupancy cost.

So affirms Craig Casey, senior building science engineer at Lutron, the lighting control leader. “For the first time, smart building systems reveal workforce insights that favor the 300 dimension like never before,” explains Casey. “Many lighting designers don’t realize that quality lighting design, with Human Centric Lighting (HCL), is intertwined with the successful deployment of smart buildings. A quality lighting environment significantly supports how we achieve comfort and productivity for staff, the ‘people efficiency’ component of a smart building. Smart buildings and quality light need each other.”

Even a modest gain in staff performance generates outsized results. The lighting designer is able to enhance staff recruitment, retention, comfort, health, and workforce productivity through human centric lighting.

WELL v2 Effect
Never before have lighting designers had such a powerful voice in the design conversation, says Casey. “A lighting designer should feel empowered to walk into a smart building conversation. Human centric lighting enables them to speak confidently about design contributions that go far beyond energy,” he says.

Reinforcing that stature is how human centric lighting represents a core feature of the WELL Building Standard v2, a fast-rising building standard.

Human Centric Lighting Key
“Many architects and designers think human centric lighting (HCL) is only about circadian effects, which is far too narrow an understanding,” Casey says. “The idea is much broader and comprehensive.” As evidence, Casey points to these HCL characteristics:

• Daylight Strategy. Sensors respond to changing environments by activating shades and modulating electric light with daylight.
• Light Quality. Quickly adjustable lighting controls offer dimming, tunable white, and color tuning in a wide range of comfort-enhancing settings.
• Personalization and Automation. Wireless personal controls on desks, conference tables, classroom podiums, and elsewhere offer tailored visual comfort with minimal effort or distraction. Meanwhile, sensors and programmed timeclocks adjust the space over the day without anyone needing to press a button.

Lighting Designer’s Emerging Role
Casey says the lighting designer’s story is a good one, and amazingly persuasive in the context of 3-30-300 and WELL v2. “The industry is fast coalescing around these twin precepts and lighting designers stand at the center. It’s an enviable spot,” he says.

For lighting designers looking to assert their emerging role, Casey recommends several things:

• Maintain a people focus with a comprehensive, holistic approach to building design in general, HCL in particular.
• Confer early and often with the architect about the owner’s occupant productivity goals. Architects are asked by their clients to provide productive work environments and look for support from their design consultants to find smart solutions.
• Place sequence of operations at the center of your strategy—research it, discuss it, document it
• Team up with manufacturers with the bandwidth and expertise to offer impact potential.

“Human centric lighting is quickly taking its place as a key workforce benefit. The conversation is changing and so are opportunities for lighting designers,” Casey says.

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