Room within a room
When a room is constructed within a larger room, for example, a sales office on the floor of a spacious, open car dealership, or a conference room in an open-plan office, a luminous ceiling can eliminate or reduce the need for lighting the smaller room individually. Borrowed light from the larger room’s general illumination may supply some or all the lighting necessary, and perhaps may be supplemented by directed task lighting. Transparent panels may be used, since diffusion is often unnecessary to spread borrowed light and eliminate hot spots.
The same strategy can be applied to kiosks in shopping malls or airport terminals. A ceiling may be needed to protect food preparation areas from falling debris, as was the case of certain Nestle Toll House by Chip restaurants, where translucent ceiling materials allowed the kiosks to meet health code requirements while borrowing light from the larger mall. Adding a ceiling also provides a sense of enclosure that defines the stand’s space and makes it feel more substantial.
Another version of this concept is found in computer data centers that use cold aisle containment systems to maintain computer-friendly environmental temperature. Facilities such as the Gadi supercomputer in Australia or CERN in Switzerland have aisles of servers that must be cooled to compensate for heat generated by high-powered computers. Cold air is pumped into aisles between server-racks through a raised floor, and is retained by transparent ceiling panels across the tops of the racks. By using transparent panels, general illumination from above can light aisles while preserving energy efficiency.
Design considerations
When designing luminous ceilings, the maximum desired illumination level (light intensity) must first be established. This usually depends on the type of occupancy and activities performed there. Illumination level is determined by the interaction of three elements: the output of the LED sources, spacing and density of the LEDs, and the degree of light transmission afforded by the ceiling panels.
LED strip output should be available in basic product data. Translucent ceiling panel product data also typically includes light transmission.
The spacing of LEDs on the strips and the number of strips per panel affect the overall light output of the ceiling. If a modest color wash is desired, strips may be spaced further apart. If high light intensity is needed, more strips with more LED’s may be required.
