Show Time: Delivering high-performance lighting for world-class museums

In many instances, the exhibit or thematic lighting provides enough general illumination to serve ambient needs. Photometric calculations can confirm whether this layer of light can be the sole source of lighting required for such areas as key circulation paths or entrance vestibules, which can require more uniform illumination. The same is true for spaces with major exhibits that serve as focal points. More traditional architectural lighting solutions (e.g. recessed, surface, or pendant-mounted fixtures) may be employed to graze or wash architectural surfaces to illuminate a particular feature or object, create visual depth, or highlight the textural dimension of these surfaces.

Further, indirect lighting may provide illumination upward to be reflected off a ceiling plane. Often, especially when light is reflected off vertical surfaces, these techniques create a perception of brightness and expand the visual horizon of the architectural or exhibition interior in an efficient manner, while allowing the exhibits to remain the focal point of the space.

There are other considerations in museum lighting specification. For example, exhibits usually require specialty custom fabrication with integrated lighting—raising new challenges for meeting codes and obtaining jurisdictional approvals. Another is the use of interactive effects, such as switches for visitor participation with an interactive station, or occupancy sensors that activate lighting when visitors are in a viewing zone. Additionally, lighting is frequently integrated with related technologies, such as computer displays and video projections, which may be sensitive to veiling reflections and over-illumination. Still, codes and common-sense safety considerations dictate a minimum level of illumination, measured in foot-candles or lumens per square foot (lm/sf) or in lux (lm/m²), in all areas of the exhibition venue.

Science center for children
To become familiar with these rules of thumb and specification approaches, one can learn from recent and state-of-the-art applications to illustrate their impact. Drawing from our recent work on projects such as Muzeiko (a children’s science center in Sofia, Bulgaria), valuable design ideas and specification tips emerge. Other recent project collaborations between the authors’ firms include the Sony Wonder Technology Lab in Manhattan, and the East Hampton Library in East Hampton, New York.

In all cases, the design team can separately consider architectural lighting and exhibit lighting. Although each layer serves different functions, they are critically linked and are highly integral to the visitor experience. Generally, both are subject to code guidelines and enforcement in such areas as general circulation systems, specialty areas, and accent systems for proper illuminance, electrical distribution, and power densities.

The architectural layer of lighting in an exhibit gallery serves several functions, including providing for cleaning and maintenance, security, and also emergency egress. These fixtures are tied into the building lighting control system, which, in turn, responds to commands from the building management system (BMS), triggering the lights to illuminate in an emergency scenario for instance.

At most museums, emergency fixtures are not illuminated during visitor hours unless triggered by the BMS to responds to an emergency situation. In Muzeiko’s case, the gallery ceiling heights were approximately 3.1 m (10 ft) above finished floor (AFF), so a low-profile, surface-mounted LED luminaire was specified to help reduce the visual presence of this layer in the gallery space.

The project’s design firm, Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership, delivered site selection and design, architecture, programming and educational consulting, and exhibition design, as well as brand identity, graphic design, and signage design. This allowed a high degree of integration between often-separate design tasks.

Evoking transparency and lightness, the glass façades allow a high level of natural daylighting into the lobby and amenity spaces of the museum and permit views of the museum’s various offerings to passersby outside. Three colorful volumes, clad with custom-printed graphics on high-pressure laminate panels, suggest the mountains ringing the host city of Sofia. The three interior levels are full of highly immersive exhibits that transport children underground into the earth on the lowest level, out into the natural world on the main level and ultimately into outer space on the uppermost level of the museum.

The exhibit lighting design strategy combines dramatic, high-contrast lighting with concealed lighting, thematic effect lighting, and decorative (yet functional) fixtures.