9/96 © Reg. R. Wilson

E-mail comments or suggestions to regrw@acay.com.au.

We received some nice comments from the US as well as locally on the first issue of Down Under Lighting.Thanks to all of those who took the trouble to contact us. Perhaps the most pleasing result was the receipt of three International enquiries - one for possible business activity with Australian products and the other two regarding possible product export to Australia. This is a positive result and proves the potential power of commercial opportunities on the World Wide Web. It also indicates that input from the Aust. / NZ lighting sector with news and promotional items will pay dividends.

IESANZ Annual Convention

With the total program now complete the Registration Brochure has been published with a copy being enclosed with the August issue of Lighting Magazine. If you do not receive this publication then contact the Convention Secretariat, Congress West, P.O. Box 1248, West Perth, West. Australia 6872 or phone (international) 61- 9 322 6662 or Fax 61-9- 322 1734 e-mail:kevinmon@ozemail.com.au

This Convention celebrates 50 years of IES activities in this part of the World and has the theme "LIVING WITH LIGHT - the human element". The keynote speakers are Dr. David Loe from the Building Research Establishment in London, Ms Janet Lennox Moyer of Jan Moyer Design, Oakland California and Dr. Jacob Liberman, President of Universal Light Technology in Colorado.

Invited speakers include John Halliday, Vice President International of IALD and Managing Director of Vision Design Studio in Melbourne, Harald Hofmann, from the Light Technical Dept. of Erco Lighting in Germany and Stephen Barrett a Director of Nelson Madardy, a major electrical consulting office in Perth.

Add to these another 15 speakers from Australia, U.S.A., Brazil, New Zealand, Germany and Portugal and you have a top class technical program. Our colleagues in Western Australia have arranged not only this impressive array of technical talent but have organised a supporting program which includes a spectacular range of sightseeing from the largest iron ore mine in Australia (and one of the largest in the world) to several National Parks and Premier wine growing areas.

Add to this two Dinners and a Welcome Cocktail Party and a series of half day Professional Development Workshops and the result is a world class program. For more information visit the IESANZ on the web.

News from IESANZ New Zealand

Brian Ellis, National Administrator of IESANZ (NZ) has advised that their members will be reminded of this column in the next newsletter so we will look forward to receiving more news items in future issues. The IES in New Zealand, formed in 1979, is a very active organisation. They have 148 members and hold regular chapter meetings in the cities of Auckland and Wellington in the North Island and Christchurch in the South Island.

The Society is currently running its annual National Lighting Awards program for both lighting design of installations and for luminaire (fixture) design. This program has been running since 1981 and attracts entries from all over NZ. This year's Awards presentations will be made at a prestigious function on the 22nd October. Down Under Lighting will report on this presentation in our November edition.

Dark Sky Lectures

As reported last month Dr. David Crawford, Executive Director of the International Dark-Sky Association visited Australia during July and gave lectures in Queensland and New South Wales. The first lecture in N.S.W. was at Siding Spring Optical Observatory, near the town of Coonabarrabran, where representatives from local government and business were shown the adverse effects on the Observatory of increasing sky brightness over their local areas - - despite an ordinance restricting upward light from lighting installations. Perhaps the most disturbing point raised was that sky glow from the city of Sydney, over 400km from the Observatory, is clearly visible on photographs taken using the powerful Anglo-Australian telescope.

This skyglow represents a major quantity of waste energy as well as suggests that many people are being subjected to discomfort glare. Dr Crawford showed classic examples of poorly designed installations, most using unsuitable lighting fittings, poorly located. He also showed excellent high illuminance examples employing efficient cut off luminaires.

Public lectures were given in both Canberra and Sydney in which Dr Crawford emphasised that so called security lighting actually aided those persons intent on robbery or personal attack. Invariably the lighting units installed in these installations also contributed to the sky glow problem. The message which came through loud and clear was that effective technology was now readily available to reduce glaring, light-wasting installations with the added benefit of saving energy.

A special meeting was convened at the University of Sydney where Dr. Crawford discussed these problems with senior technical management from major lighting equipment manufacturers and consulting engineering offices. Also present were members or the committee who were responsible for the writing of the new interim Obtrusive lighting code, which will be discussed further next month, and lighting design software developers. Prof. Warren Julian, Dean, Faculty of Architecture, University of Sydney emphasised the importance of careful design utilising proper equipment. He pointed out that every attempt should be made to convince the owner of the benefits obtained from expending just a little more finance on the project. As Dr. Crawford concluded - - with good design, everyone is a winner.

Please contact this correspondent on regrw @acay.com.au or the web site for the International Dark-Sky Association for technical literature etc.

Australian Standard for Obtrusive Light

It should be noted that there is little time left to submit comments to Standards Australia regarding Interim Standard AS 4282 - The Control of Obtrusive Effects of Outdoor Lighting. The final review of this interim standard is due early in December so if there are points which it is felt should be either made or modified, now is the time to act. Contact your local Standards Australia Office without delay. In the next issue we will provide a detailed resume of this important document.

E-Mail Addresses

The response to the request for Aust. / NZ. Lighting Industry members to make their e- mail address known could hardly be called encouraging. In this column last month some thoughts on this subject were canvased and a few have responded. One said that this information was not to be made publicly available. That is OK and that is why telephone companies supply "silent" numbers just so that inwards calls can be very carefully regulated. So once again the request is made for those with an e-mail address to send a brief message to regrw @acay.com.au saying "I am (name) and this is my (or company) address". This information can only speed up communications, especially International, between members of our industry.

Standards Australia

For our international visitors it should be known that most aspects of lighting equipment and lighting design are regulated by Standard Codes of Practice issued by the Standards Association of Australia - known as Standards Australia. In order to obtain some essential background information of this important organisation and how it works please check out their Web Page. Be sure to bookmark this web page for future reference.

Interesting International Visitors

Several Internationally known members of the lighting industry visited Australia during August. The first was Alan Ruud, President of Ruud Lighting Inc. and Mrs. Susan Ruud who hosted functions in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where Consultants, Major Contractors and Govt. engineers heard an address on the latest company activities. This provided an ideal opportunity for Australian customers to clearly state their specific local product requirements as well as discuss the current product range with the CEO of a major manufacturer. All functions were well attended with a number of questions (some quite spirited) raised and discussed.

During the last week of August Robert Shook, one of the Principals of distinguished Chicago lighting design office of Schuler & Shook, and Mrs. Leslie Shook, Theatre Manager of De Paul University visited Sydney for a few days before travelling North to Cairns to explore the delights of the Great Barrier Reef and Tropical Rain Forest country. They will return to the US after visiting Singapore. Robert was particularly impressed with the architectural development in the City around the Darling Harbour area since his last visit in early 1987.

NATA on the Web

Of special international interest will be the news that the National Association of Testing Authorities now has an interactive site on the WWW with the address of http://www.aaa.com.au/nata. Many Australian Standards require specific test certification of lighting products before they can be connected to the electricity supply. NATA can supply details of relevant NATA certified laboratories and test stations for various products. In future issues of Down Under Lighting we will visit some of these to examine in detail just what is required in their specific area of expertise.

Congratulations

Queensland based lighting manufacturer, Intralux Australia has just received an Australian Design Award for it's Kove family of indirect lighting products.

Kove is a modular fluorescent system that provides smooth indirect illumination, with no shadowing combined with amazing flexibility and the convenience of "Plug and Go", an ingenious plug in installation system.

The judging panel recognised that this system had been specifically designed to address the requirements of architects and designers in the area of indirect cove illumination. It performs this role admirably and the combination of clever design, excellent build quality and reliability should please designers, installers and end users alike.

For more information check out the Intralux home page.

New Products Night - IESANZ (NSW)

As announced in our last column, the IESANZ(NSW) New Products night for 1996 was expanded to an afternoon and a night on Tuesday 2nd September. Visitors started arriving at 3.30pm and by 4.30 numbers had swelled considerably proving that the early opening was a success. By 5.30pm when a recess was called to enable a sound and light show to be set up, the exhibition area was crowded. At 6.00pm IES(NSW) President, Helmut Paidasch officially welcomed over 250 members and guests and thanked the 22 Corporate Members who were participating in the trade show.

This year each exhibitor was allowed 3 minutes to describe their new product selected for display. Presentation Master of Ceremonies, Murray Robson had a massive brass gong and large hammer at the ready to "sound off" participants who exceeded their allocated time. Fortunately for visitors ears this device was only used several times. The presentations were divided into two sessions with the serving of a buffet meal and beverages occurring in between.

Products and presentation methods were varied with the former covering lamps, luminaires (fixtures), accessories and systems. The recently released T5 lamp was introduced in a low brightness troffer by Philips newly appointed Projects Manager, Greg Hawkings; whilst Thorn Lighting showed practical examples of what their newly installed 3D CAD software could produce. In our next issue we hope to show you some details describing their results. Fibre optics and entertainment style accent lighting were presented in a spectacular manner. Wadco's Trevor Riley was told that he has a case to answer with his display of polarising panels and responded by saying indeed he had a good case and said that it was under his table and showed a piece of well travelled luggage! Congratulations are in order for all exhibitors and if comments from non exhibiting suppliers present are any guide, next years New Products Night will be an more impressive event. We will keep you advised as to when this will be held.

Closing Comment

As correspondent I do request that all Australian and NZ members of the lighting industry, and that includes consultants and designers, to PLEASE send me news and views which will be of interest to our viewers from all around the World.

You can reach me at regrw@acay.com.au or local phone / fax no.is (02) 9488 7078.

© Reg R. Wilson Lighting Analysis & Design

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