If German artist Hans Peter Kuhn has his way, soon Pittsburgh's skyline will be pierced with hot, white needles of light, high atop the Mattress Factory museum on the city's North Side.
The installation, "Acupuncture," will be a permanent one for the museum founded in 1977, which focuses on installation art.
Though "Acupuncture" won't have a sound element, it will include half a dozen "needles" or lines of light, each 65 to 100 feet in length.
Utilizing custom LED technology engineered by Pittsburgh-based Bunting Graphics, each needle will be made up of several 8-foot sections that will appear as one long needle of light.
"Since the piece will be visible from all sides, and the LEDs unfortunately only emit light in one direction, the engineers at Bunting had to invent a system to light up the back side of the LED, as well, without raising the costs of construction or the electrical-power usage," Kuhn says. "For this, they came up with a very efficient acrylic glass tube that diffuses the light in all directions plus gives the LED rods additional weather protection."
In anticipation of installation, slated for sometime in mid-2012 (after the funds are raised), a new roof will be installed on the building and steel supports will be erected onto which the "lightsticks" will be attached.
"It is serious hardware that we are dealing with here, and it will take some time and craftsmanship to install," Kuhn says.
"The big advantage of the LED technology is that the power consumption is extraordinary small," Kuhn adds. "Although this will be quite a big piece -- approximately 500 feet of bright light lines -- the power consumption will be less then 1.5 kilowatts per hour. This does not only end up in reasonable costs but also with a small carbon footprint."
So far, the design and engineering phase of this project has been completed, and just over $150,000 has been raised to cover the costs of that design and the necessary city permit. Luderowski says that $40,000 of that was spent on engineering, figuring for height, weight and wind resistance.
"We now need and are searching for the $500,000 it will take to put it together, erect it and put it on the roof," Luderowski says.
She hopes the piece will become a visible and significant marker for the North Side, and the city of Pittsburgh. "It's not a sign, or the typical kind of thing you'd find on roofs here," she says.
To kick-start the effort, an anonymous donor has offered $25,000 in the form of a "challenge grant," offering to match funds after that amount has been met.
"The lighting is a custom job. You couldn't just go and buy the lighting. It had to be engineered," Olijnyk says.
"Physically, the opportunity is so spectacular, because our building is this pedestal in the middle of this Victorian neighborhood," Olijnyk says. "It is six stories tall, and everything is below it. So it really is the perfect opportunity to have this happen here."
Showing posts with label lights flashing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lights flashing. Show all posts
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Sunday, 11 December 2011
'Smart' streetlights are bringing the future to Chattanooga today
Imagine strobing streetlights warning you that a tornado is bearing down on Chattanooga.
Think about those lights flashing in waves to signal the proper direction of an evacuation route in the event of a nuclear or hazardous materials alert. What if the streetlights also could hold plug-in crime surveillance cameras and real-time pollution monitoring sensors?
Well, the possibility isn't decades away. It's now -- but only in Chattanooga.
"The world's smartest lights are made in Chattanooga," proclaims the Web page of Global Green Lighting Inc., a company of Don Lepard. The long-time Chattanooga resident and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate is moving jobs here from China to make the most of his company's innovative streetlights, tested first at Coolidge Park.
Last week, Mayor Ron Littlefield touted Coolidge Park's "smart" streetlights to a visiting conference. He said Chattanooga could save $1.5 million on its annual $11 million electric bill by expanding that technology to all of the city's streetlights.
But the mayor's chief of staff, Dan Johnson, has even higher hopes for a lighting system he says he's "sold on."
"I think the savings is approximately 50 percent, and the streetlights portion of our bill was $4 [million] to $4.5 million in fiscal 2010," Johnson said. "We've been looking at this for months, and I think in the long run it won't cost the city any money. We'll have some front-end startup expenses, but within six months, we'll start saving money."
The deal isn't finalized yet. Johnson and Lepard say negotiations are continuing. But requests for bids have been issued and Global Green Lighting won the nod.
"Basically, [retrofitting] the lighting in the entire city is a huge project, and we're going to take that in steps," Johnson said. "But if everything was done at once, which it won't be, it would total about $20 million."
While the lights may slice the city's power bill $1.5 million a year, EPB's Harold DePriest said it's kind of a wash for the electricity distributor.
"We give the city a pass-through for the streetlights. We sell them that power for the same price it costs us," he said. "Plus, [saving energy is] the right thing to do."
About 80 of those jobs will be imported from China, where Lepard previously contracted for the solid-state components used in Global Manufacturing Alliance Group, the electronics repackaging business he started nearly 15 years ago in Soddy-Daisy.
But Lepard, and David Crockett, head of Chattanooga's Office of Sustainability, have still bigger job plans: streetlight recycling. And smart-light training.
After all, what's going to happen to the thousands of lights being replaced? And who knows how to program and control lights using software programs?
"Sure, we could just take out the old lights and sell the ones that work to another town," Crockett said. "But that doesn't really take that light off the grid, it just makes them somebody else's big energy user."
He said the city will train public works and police officials to "make the most of the new lights."
"But we won't stop there. We hope to export that new knowledge, and train people in other municipalities as they get the new lights," said Crockett.
Think about those lights flashing in waves to signal the proper direction of an evacuation route in the event of a nuclear or hazardous materials alert. What if the streetlights also could hold plug-in crime surveillance cameras and real-time pollution monitoring sensors?
Well, the possibility isn't decades away. It's now -- but only in Chattanooga.
"The world's smartest lights are made in Chattanooga," proclaims the Web page of Global Green Lighting Inc., a company of Don Lepard. The long-time Chattanooga resident and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate is moving jobs here from China to make the most of his company's innovative streetlights, tested first at Coolidge Park.
Last week, Mayor Ron Littlefield touted Coolidge Park's "smart" streetlights to a visiting conference. He said Chattanooga could save $1.5 million on its annual $11 million electric bill by expanding that technology to all of the city's streetlights.
But the mayor's chief of staff, Dan Johnson, has even higher hopes for a lighting system he says he's "sold on."
"I think the savings is approximately 50 percent, and the streetlights portion of our bill was $4 [million] to $4.5 million in fiscal 2010," Johnson said. "We've been looking at this for months, and I think in the long run it won't cost the city any money. We'll have some front-end startup expenses, but within six months, we'll start saving money."
The deal isn't finalized yet. Johnson and Lepard say negotiations are continuing. But requests for bids have been issued and Global Green Lighting won the nod.
"Basically, [retrofitting] the lighting in the entire city is a huge project, and we're going to take that in steps," Johnson said. "But if everything was done at once, which it won't be, it would total about $20 million."
While the lights may slice the city's power bill $1.5 million a year, EPB's Harold DePriest said it's kind of a wash for the electricity distributor.
"We give the city a pass-through for the streetlights. We sell them that power for the same price it costs us," he said. "Plus, [saving energy is] the right thing to do."
About 80 of those jobs will be imported from China, where Lepard previously contracted for the solid-state components used in Global Manufacturing Alliance Group, the electronics repackaging business he started nearly 15 years ago in Soddy-Daisy.
But Lepard, and David Crockett, head of Chattanooga's Office of Sustainability, have still bigger job plans: streetlight recycling. And smart-light training.
After all, what's going to happen to the thousands of lights being replaced? And who knows how to program and control lights using software programs?
"Sure, we could just take out the old lights and sell the ones that work to another town," Crockett said. "But that doesn't really take that light off the grid, it just makes them somebody else's big energy user."
He said the city will train public works and police officials to "make the most of the new lights."
"But we won't stop there. We hope to export that new knowledge, and train people in other municipalities as they get the new lights," said Crockett.
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