Examination of LED based facade lighting

Urban lighting covers lighting of urban and art values located outdoor places or surrounding areas where people commute from or live in. Historic buildings and ruins, fortifications, stelas, squares, monuments, sculptures, social and cultural places, parks, pools, artificial lakes and pedestrian areas can be used to exemplify the artistic and architectural values which make up the subject of urban lighting. Facade lighting is one of the topics in urban lighting applied to make a building visible at night-time as well as promoting the publicity of building. Successfully applied lighting practises, especially in commercial and administrative ones can serve as a security measures besides helping promotion of this building. Different from conventional light sources, light emitting diodes (LEDs) which provide with solid-coloured option and enable not only static but also dynamic lighting are used commonly in facade lighting. This study aims to specify different techniques used in facade lighting, analyse lighting design of some selected buildings lightened with LED in Istanbul. This study also aims to compose lighting designs with white and coloured lights which prepared via computer aided environment and assess these designs objectively. Aforementioned study is formed in three steps. In the first step of this study, exterior architecture of selected buildings is classified and according to architectural characteristics of buildings, various lighting suggestions are proposed. Subsequently, different techniques which can be applied in facade lighting are specified as a result of research carried out. These techniques are explained with support from examples based on their static and dynamic lighting specifications. The second phase of this study is focused on seven buildings which were lightened with LED as static or dynamic at İstanbul. Five of these buildings are contemporary and the remaining two are historical. These buildings functions as hotel, sport complex, shopping mall, hospital, military complex and museum, their existing lighting plan is observed on site, daytime and nigh time view are photographed and documented. Existing lighting plan of these buildings are visualized in computer aided environment using the data and documents obtained during this study. Considering buildings' architectural specifications, alternative lighting techniques are researched and for each selected building, alternative facade lighting suggestions are developed. The last step of this study consists of a survey conduct in order to make an objective assessment of lighting designs formed by using static white light, static coloured light and dynamic coloured light of the selected seven buildings. The survey aims to make an observation on participants' opinion about lighting techniques, lighting colours and static-dynamic lighting options. As a result of the input from the survey, guidance on facade lighting, which is a significant part of urban lighting, is proposed.