Direct Reflect (1st Year)

By: Rebecca McNemee

POV:Every pedestrian out at night on UNL campus needs to be able to see the pathway ahead of them vividly, as if they were out during the day-similar to a cloudy sky day-, to allow the pedestrian to find and stay on the path while having the extra secure feeling of safety.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:Location based in the City Campus of the University of Nebraska Lincoln. The goal of the project is to take the existing pathway lighting and projecting it more directly on to the given pathway, in a way it will also broaden the foot-candle. Looking at various light poles used, it has been narrowed down to the Campus newest light pole, an LED Curvilinear VL by Kim Lighting. To gain semi accurate measurements the pole has been modeled to half scale. The reflector in real life then will be 2’-6” long and 2’-0” tall, made of 6” x ½” strips. The material used is a ducting sheet metal. This material is used for its reflectivity, flexibility and sturdiness. The human interaction to this project is through the vision of a lit pathway.

USER PROFILE:The user’s vision is the key experience to this project. With the need to see a lit pathway, the designed reflector changes the direction of the light towards the path. Allowing the user to see the path clearer.

IDEATING

Taking two ideas and going deeper in the possibilities. [Coffee table] [Street lighting]

Narrowing down to one idea. [Street lighting]

POV:Every pedestrian out at night on UNL campus needs to be able to see the pathway ahead of them vividly, as if they were out during the day-similar to a cloudy sky day-, to allow the pedestrian to find and stay on the path while having the extra secure feeling of safety.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:Location based in the City Campus of the University of Nebraska Lincoln. The goal of the project is to take the existing pathway lighting and projecting it more directly on to the given pathway, in a way it will also broaden the foot-candle. Looking at various light poles used, it has been narrowed down to the Campus newest light pole, an LED Curvilinear VL by Kim Lighting. To gain semi accurate measurements the pole has been modeled to half scale. The reflector in real life then will be 2’-6” long and 2’-0” tall, made of 6” x ½” strips. The material used is a ducting sheet metal. This material is used for its reflectivity, flexibility and sturdiness. The human interaction to this project is through the vision of a lit pathway.

USER PROFILE:The user’s vision is the key experience to this project. With the need to see a lit pathway, the designed reflector changes the direction of the light towards the path. Allowing the user to see the path clearer.

Articles

First document is from the city of Lincoln design standards for outdoor ligthing.

Second is an article from continuing education.construction.com [Satisfying New Model Codes for Illuminating Steps, Ramps and Paths of Egress] by Jeanette Fitzgerald Pitts of December 2013.

Also read an article from National Geographic [Our Vanishing Night] by: Verlyn Kinkenborg and a case study on Osram Sylvania Lighting website. Both were helpful in my research.

Websites

Viewed Osram Sylvania lighting website, where I found case studies and helpful informative videos.

https://www.sylvania.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx

Another informative website was Energy.gov

Emails

Emails to and from UNL's Landscape Architect Emily Casper. I discussed with her about the various lights used on campus and asked questions about lighting and safety. [Her response in blue]

From: rebecca mcnemee [mailto:rebecca.mcnemee@huskers.unl.edu]
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2014 6:29 PM
To: Emily Casper
Subject: Design Making: Information help on UNL campus

Hello Emily,

My name is Rebecca McNemee, I am a first year student here in UNL’s architecture program. I am currently in the studio style class of Design Making, working on a project involving the street and side walk lighting on and around campus. Professor Kim Wilson pointed me to you in hope of gaining some information.

The information I am searching to gain is over the type of light polls and light bulbs used, the placement of lights, as well as the regulations or standards the university and city have. Another question; are the lights, say between R Street and vine going down N. 17th Street, maintained by the city or the university?

Any form of information is greatly appreciated. I am at the begging stage of my project and have a little information found from the Illuminating Engineering Society website and a document with classifications and standards for different kinds of lighting. If you have any maps or plans of the campus and lighting I could take a look at and possible scan a copy or have, would be very useful. As well if you have any recommendations of designers, articles, organizations, etcetera I will gladly look into them. Also if you have any knowledge over light pollution I would appreciate that information as well.

Thank you so much for taking time to read this and get back to me at your convenience. Any information is greatly appreciative.

-Rebecca McNemee

From: Emily Casper [mailto:emily.casper@unl.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 1:50 PM
To: rebecca mcnemee
Subject: RE: Design Making: Information help on UNL campus

Rebecca – I’d be happy to help out. I can answer a few of your questions now, but will have to look into some of the others.

Current campus standard:

LED Post Top Area Light, Type V Distribution, Photocontrol, Dark Bronze Finish

Manufacturer and Catalog No. - KIM PT-CCS21P5-12-L5K-208V-DB-A31-PRA16-4188-DB

Lamp - 120 LED’S

Load – 140

Voltage - 208

http://www.kimlighting.com/products/curvilinear_vl

Our old standard was this one: http://www.kimlighting.com/products/curvilinear_wthwtv

We switched to installing the LED about 2 years ago

The spacing for the light standards has changed over the years. We used to look at 90’ spacing, now we’re closer to 75’. This is something we continually try to work on to provide a safe campus environment. On campus our spacing varies and changes due to mature plant material as well so we use the spacing as a guideline, but always look at the site. With the switch to LED I still think we’re off a bit on our spacing – again – always working on this to make sure we’re providing a safe environment. There is a campus safety walk about every 12-18 months held late evening where various student groups and service units tour campus to identify/review safety issues. Many of the issues that come up are lights that are out, trees that need to be trimmed away from lights or areas where we are lacking sufficient lighting. We take these seriously and always take care of the first two items as soon as possible, the installation of new lights is dependent on funding, but we try to get them taken care of as soon as funding is available.

I’ll check on the regulations. I know at East Stadium plaza there was a required minimum standard of 1 FC required across the entire site – that could be because of an egress situation. Let me look into this one a little more. You may also be able to find some information through lighting engineer resources.

The lights on R Street were actually installed by LES (Lincoln Electric System), and I believe they are maintained by LES. I don’t know the exact fixture and LES couldn’t tell me in the past when I’ve asked. I do know they don’t like them very much because they are not energy efficient and hard to replace.

We have the pedestrian lights mapped in GIS. I will talk to our GIS analyst and see if he can extrapolate that data for you. Do you have access to GIS or would you prefer it in just a .pdf format?

I’ll do a little research on your last questions. There is probably a lot of things out there that you can find on your own. As far as light pollution from our standpoint – we went to the Kim fixture a long time because it does not up light and reduces light pollution. That has been an initiative of the University for over 15 years.

Please let me know what your deadline is for information and if you’d like the data in GIS. And as you look through things please feel free to email me any questions you have.

Emily

Emily C. Casper, ASLA, PLA | Campus Landscape Architect

Facilities Planning and Construction

University of Nebraska – Lincoln

1901 Y Street, Lincoln, NE 68588-0605

W: (402) 472-4795 | C: (402) 540-9256 | emily.casper@unl.edu

Building Solutions

From: rebecca mcnemee [mailto:rebecca.mcnemee@huskers.unl.edu]
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 8:17 AM
To: Emily Casper
Subject: RE: Design Making: Information help on UNL campus

Oh Thank you so much Emily!

I will defiantly look at the kim lighting website. Is there a particular reason the university went with these particular overhead/ pedestrian zone dole lighting instead of bollard lighting?

It is great to know the campus is so active in making the walking experience so safe. Especially being a young women that walks practically everywhere, its nice knowing there is effort being taken to make the campus a safe place to walk…By walking so much spruced my idea towards sidewalk lighting.

With the regulations and answers to the other questions if you could get back to me by the end of this weekend that would be great. The sooner the better though. As well I don’t believe I can get GIS on my laptop so a pdf would work best.

Thank you so very much for your time.

-Rebecca

Rebecca – I couldn’t get the maps done before I was out of the office and they’re not working for me trying to remote into my computer. I won’t be able to get into the office until tomorrow. I can send you the maps first thing in the morning if that still works for you. I’ll keep trying, but ArcMap keeps locking up on me.

As for the choice of pedestrian lights over bollards lighting – bollard lighting is actually extremely inefficient at lighting large areas. And it only lights the ground surface and not areas around the light source. On campus we’re lighting such large areas that it’s not cost effective or the safest solution. Bollard lighting has also in the past been more costly to maintain.

For code standards you should be able to look these up in the code books in the Architecture library or online….I found a little bit on one website – see below – but this is one person’s interpretation so I wouldn’t use it as your source. I would check IBC (International Building Code) Section 1006.3. Codes are interpreted, so there is usually conflicting information. UNL typically follows the minimum 1 FC whenever installing new lights. There are areas of campus that are not at 1 FC because they have not been installed under the new building code. As lighting is replaced on campus we use the latest code to determine our minimum FC. This is where we are with the current 75’ spacing.

I can do more checking with the UNL code official, but he was out on Thursday and I was out on Friday so it will be tomorrow morning before I can get more information from him. My husband also works at an architectural firm and he can ask their lighting engineers in the morning.

Life Safety Code. Section 7.8.1.3 of NFPA 101 states, “The floors and other walking surfaces within an exit and within portions of the exit access and exit discharge designated in 7.8.1.1 shall be illuminated to values of at least 1 footcandle measured at the floor.”

Section 7.9.2.1, “Performance of Systems,” dictates the following: “Emergency illumination shall be provided for a period of 1½ hours in the event of failure of normal lighting. Emergency lighting facilities shall be arranged to provide initial illumination that is at least an average of 1 footcandle and a minimum at any point of 0.1 footcandle measured along the path of egress at floor level. Illumination levels may decline to 0.6 footcandles average and a minimum at any point of 0.06 footcandles at the end of the emergency illumination lighting time duration. A maximum to minimum illumination uniformity ratio of 40-to-1 shall not be exceeded.”

Uniform Building Code. Section 1003.2.9.1 of the UBC states, “Any time a building is occupied, the means of egress shall be illuminated at an intensity of not less than 1 footcandle at floor level.”

International Building Code. Section 1006.2, Illumination Level, of the IBC states, “The means of egress illumination level shall not be less than 1 footcandle at the floor level.”

Section 1006.4, Performance of Systems, states: “Emergency lighting facilities shall be arranged to provide initial illumination that is at least an average of 1 footcandle and a minimum of any point of 0.1 footcandles measured along the path of egress at floor level.”

Emily

Emily C. Casper, ASLA, PLA | Campus Landscape Architect

Facilities Planning and Construction

University of Nebraska – Lincoln

1901 Y Street, Lincoln, NE 68588-0605

W: (402) 472-4795 | C: (402) 540-9256 | emily.casper@unl.edu

Building Solutions

From: rebecca mcnemee [mailto:rebecca.mcnemee@huskers.unl.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 11:14 AM
To: Emily Casper
Subject: RE: Design Making: Information help on UNL campus

Emily- Thank you so much!

The codes are very helpful and I will certainly look into them more.

TJ Schirmer from Clark Enersen, is he the engineer from your husband’s work? Just wanted to check. But I will email him today with some questions more related to lighting itself. Thank you so much for his information.

The maps are fantastic they were exactly what I needed! It made my google map version look ridiculous (haha) but so very grateful to have the actual one, thank you. A question towards the maps and the safety walk- would you know of the spots that have the least amount of lighting projected on the sidewalks? Also I would love to participate in the safety walk. Though sadly my project will be do before then, but this is a topic that I want to be involved in and would enjoy helping.

Again thank you so greatly much Emily for your help. I would be lost without the information you have given me. If more questions come up ill make sure to ask as well I will get to emailing TJ.

Have a great week.

-Rebecca

Yes – TJ works with my husband (Eric Casper).

One area that was dark is just west of Behlen Lab. I’m trying to work on funding for lighting in that area for this spring/summer. Otherwise, the campus is in pretty good shape, but we do find spots where we need improvement. You can probably identify areas based on the map that might be darker than others. This can be deceiving those because in a lot of locations UNL’s campus interacts with City street and pedestrian lighting, which is not mapped, and we don’t have need for separate campus lighting. If you can be safe and go in a group – the best way to see problem areas is to walk around at night. But – be safe!

The Safety walk is on April 24th at 9:00 PM. We meet at the 17th and R Garage in the breezeway where Campus Police park. We’ll board a bus at 9:00 and drive/walk around – they have asked for locations to review and rsvp for attending the walk by April 17th. If you want to go I’ll let them know. If you and/or others you know have places you’ve seen that you think are problematic let me know and I can get them on the list to look at.

Good luck!

Emily

Emily C. Casper, ASLA, PLA | Campus Landscape Architect

Facilities Planning and Construction

University of Nebraska – Lincoln

1901 Y Street, Lincoln, NE 68588-0605

W: (402) 472-4795 | C: (402) 540-9256 | emily.casper@unl.edu

Building Solutions

From: rebecca mcnemee [mailto:rebecca.mcnemee@huskers.unl.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 10:14 AM
To: TJ Schirmer
Subject: Rebecca McNemee UNL campus lighting project

Hello TJ,

My name is Rebecca McNemee I am a first year architecture student at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. UNL’s Landscape Architect Emily Casper provided me with your information and said that you may be able to answer some of my questions. Any help is greatly appreciated but if you can’t I thank you for your time.

Currently I am working on a project for my studio class where we had to find an interaction between humans and the built environment, whether that’s a building, an object or somewhere outside. So I chose the connection of humans that walk on lit sidewalks at night. My project is trying to direct the existing sidewalk poll lighting onto the sidewalk surface at a broader range while still keeping the 1 foot candle rule or intensifying it. This project has to be an attachment to the human body or the existing light pole so I am not redesigning a whole new light and instead an attachment of reflective material. But some of my questions are…

1.) What are some of the top reflective materials that could be used for lighting?

2.) What is in a light pole head that projects the light down and contains the light?

3.) My understanding from reading articles and regulations about lighting is foot candles are one lumen per square foot that is on a surface. Am I understanding this correctly? As well, what is the best way to determine the range of light projected on to a side walk that is a 120 Watt LED bulb at a height of 13 feet? Is it just a guess from observation or would there be a formula?

I hope my questions were clear if not please let me know and I will try to find another way to ask.

Thank you so much for your time and help. If I could please try to hear back from you before tomorrow that would be fantastic but any time before next Tuesday will be a huge help. Again, thank you!

-Rebecca McNemee

From: TJ Schirmer [mailto:tj.schirmer@clarkenersen.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 1:36 PM
To: rebecca mcnemee
Subject: RE: Rebecca McNemee UNL campus lighting project

Rebecca,

Hopefully, this will answer some of your questions:

· The most common highly reflective material used in aluminum, you can find aluminum reflectors used in anything form indoor lighting fixtures to exterior pole mounted fixtures. Some interior fixtures just use white paint on metal as a reflective surface.

· In single lamp technologies (fixtures containing a single lamp such as metal halide, incandescent or high pressure sodium) the reflector behind the lamp is used to direct light where it needs to go. Exterior fixtures are typically available in several types of lighting distributions depending on how you would like the light to be thrown. Light can be directed forward, to the sides or all around the fixture. LED fixtures typically have their light distribution directed by aiming the individual LEDs (in association with reflectors). I have attached some information from Kim Lighting on their new LED emitter technology that may be of some help.

· You are correct in your definition of a footcandle. That is the measurement that you would use to determine the amount of light on a given surface. When we are designing a space, we use fairly complex software to determine the lighting levels in the space. However, that software uses information that we obtain from fixture manufacturers to perform the calculations. There are also hand calculations to do this, but they only give you an average light level and also require information from manufacturers. I do not know that that information exists for an incandescent lamp. The best way to measure the light level is to use a light meter (footcandle meter). This is a device that you set on the surface where you want to measure the light and it will display the footcandle reading. We have one in the office that I would be happy to lend you except that I seemed to have broken it a couple of months ago and we haven’t replaced it. They are available on-line or perhaps at a lighting supply store.

Hopefully, that answered some of your questions. If not, let me know.

T.J.

TJ Schirmer, P.E., LEED® AP

Director of Engineering

Senior Principal

The Clark Enersen Partners

1010 Lincoln Mall, Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68508-2883

402.477.9291 Office

402.477.6542 Fax

tj.schirmer@clarkenersen.com

www.clarkenersen.com

From: rebecca mcnemee [mailto:rebecca.mcnemee@huskers.unl.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 9:40 AM
To: TJ Schirmer
Subject: RE: Rebecca McNemee UNL campus lighting project

Hello TJ,

Maybe you could help me again. I am trying to do some converting and I feel I am doing it wrong. By taking a 120 Watt LED bulb this equals to 7200 Lumens. And from my understanding the foot candle is 1 lumen per square foot so the bulb would equal to 7200 Foot candles? And then converting the FC to Lux I would get 77500.125 Lux which are at 1 lumen per square meter?

Also, would I need to use the light meter to determine how reflective a material would be?

I am just trying to get an estimate on how far a sidewalk will be illuminated from a 120 LED light projected straight down at 13’ and again when adding aluminum reflectors and then white paint. Unfortunately I keep hitting walls of confusion and miss understanding.

Would there be a way you could help explain this to me please? Sorry for any inconvenience. I thank you very much for your time!

-Rebecca McNemee

From: TJ Schirmer [mailto:tj.schirmer@clarkenersen.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 6, 2014 12:37 PM
To: rebecca mcnemee
Subject: RE: Rebecca McNemee UNL campus lighting project

Rebecca,

Answers to your questions:

· Converting from lumens to footcandles is not quite that easy. A 120 Watt light bulb produces 7200 lumens, but those lumens are directed out of the bulb in many different directions. Therefore, any calculation needs to take into account all of the reflective surfaces around the bulb. For this, we usually use computer models to calculate the footcandle levels because there are so many other factors.

· A light meter would not be able to tell you how reflective a material is. It would only be able to tell you what your light level (in Footcandles or Lux) is at a given point. I don’t have a good reference for reflectivity of materials, but one might be available on line.

· I don’t think that you are going to be able to predict footcandles on a walk from a 120 LED light without a lot of very complicated math. If you are purchasing a light fixture, the manufacture might have a computerized photometric file for the fixture that can be used in lighting software to determine the light level, but if it is 120 random LEDs, it would be extremely difficult to calculate.

Your best alternative may be to construct your fixture and take actual measurements.

Hope that helps some.

T.J.

TJ Schirmer, P.E., LEED® AP

Director of Engineering

Senior Principal

The Clark Enersen Partners

1010 Lincoln Mall, Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68508-2883

402.477.9291 Office

402.477.6542 Fax

tj.schirmer@clarkenersen.com

www.clarkenersen.com

My attempt to configuring the foot-candle of various light bulbs. What I found out from the electrical engineer TJ though is there are many factors to take into consideration and there is no simple way of configuring a lights foot-candle. The company he works for uses computer programs and manufacture data given to them with various light bulbs. A light meter can also be used but not as accurate. This is why any diagrams/drawings with foot-candle lighting is an approximation.

I emailed various eye doctors and institutes in Nebraska and the US about how far a person with 20/20 vision can see a light poll in the day, at night when un lit and when lit. I recieved two responses.

EyeCare Specialties, Dr. Brian Brightman [His response in blue]

From: "EyeCare Specialties" <admin@eyecarespecialties.com>

Sent: 3/6/2014 2:12:35 AM

To: inquiries@ecseyes.com

Subject: General Inquiries

Form Name: General Inquiries

First Name: Rebecca

Last Name: McNemee

Email Addr: rebecca.mcnemee@huskers.unl.edu

Comments: I was wondering if someone could please tell me how far way someone with 20/20 vision could see a light poll in daily light, in unlit darkness and in darkness when the light poll is lit.

Thank you for your time on looking into my questions. Any information will be a great help towards my project.

-Rebecca McNemee

Submit Inquiry: Send

Rebecca,

This is the reply from Dr. Brian Brightman.

I don't know distances for this. Linear acuity is our best vision. You can see the Great Wall of China from space because of linear acuity.

In darkness our detail vision is very obscured. So it would be a very short distance away that you could see a light pole in complete complete darkness A lit lamp post can be seen from over 2 miles away if it is a very dark surrounding and the light is not washed out by ambient light.

Brian Brightman, OD

Nebraska Eye Institue, Dr. Doug Rienks [His response in blue]

20/20 acuity allows a person to recognize letters with 1 arc minute of seperation. This is why there are only a few letters on the standard acuity chart. When you ask about the ability to see a pole that would depend on the size of the pole, do you want then just to be able to distinuish that there is light from the pole? In different lighting conditions this will also vary according to ambient light and how good the low contrast sensitivity is for that person.

I know I did not answer your question but if you wanted a safe estimate would be 60 arc seconds

Doug Rienks, OD

Vision Source

Nebraska Eye Institute

402-435-1166