Luminous 14:
Discussing with light
The ‘experience light’ and ‘explore light’ spaces at the Lighting Application Center (LAC) offer visitors opposing but complementary experiences – the first shows them the latest understanding of light, and the second gives them a hands-on experience of working with light.
Visitors to theLAC start their tour by visiting two dedicated and linked spaces – one in which they will experience just what is possible with modern light, and the other where they will gain an understanding of the flexibility and control that it will give them and the basics of how it works.
These two spaces, dubbed ‘experience light’ and ‘explore light’, have been designed by Thinc, a design practice based in New York City. Tom Hennes, founder of the practice, explained, ‘We wanted to show how Philips understands light in a way that no other manufacturer does. We wanted to show how light affects mood, how it influences health, how it can mitigate pain, can make us feel welcome and warm, how it can make us focus.’
The space is in part a tribute to two of The Netherlands’ great artists, Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld. In their paintings and architecture/ furniture, both these masters used rectangles of color. The Thinc presentation, therefore, has rectangular screens set into an illuminated and changing background. This is an immersive experience since visitors are within a box with screens on all four walls and the ceiling. The lighting effects in the surrounding area will change and at the same time the screens will show different high definition images.
The entire video process will last for just over eight minutes, after which visitors will be able to move across the corridor to the ‘explore light’ space. This moves the visitor from an experience to something more active.
Visitors start with white light, breaking it down with a prism and recombining it. They can then learn more about the human eye, followed by an explanation of the meaning of color temperature and color rendering. They will be able to handle and explore the elements that go into LEDs, and they will also be able to explore different lighting effects.
