It is increasingly common in Latin America to know of interventions in buildings to renew their lighting, especially in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. LED technology is the most widely used.
Richard Santa Sanchez
Restoring a building's lighting isn't just thinking about state-of-the-art lights. An equally important factor to these is the protection of the architecture of the buildings, and more if they are valued as a Material Heritage of Humanity by Unesco or Cultural Heritage of a nation.
Currently, interventions in the field of lighting renovation seek to reduce energy consumption and make better use of the lighting of spaces with new technologies. For the vast majority of renovations, integrators have found in LED lights the results that the consumer demands.
But the installation of LED lights requires a different distribution than that used for lights of another technology, which implies that in built buildings some intervention is required on the walls or ceilings.
In this regard, the architect Luz Piedad Mantilla, from Osram de Colombia, said that the architecture of the building can be affected depending on the type of intervention that is going to be carried out, because the objective of these works is to give new conditions of habitability to the space. That is why it is sought to be as less invasive as possible, preserving the special conditions and characteristics that have architectural value and that must be preserved.
"With the emergence of new energy-saving technologies, long-life, ecological products and lighting control systems, it is quite common to carry out these works in any type of building, including architectural conservation, without any inconvenience in terms of technical and economic limitations," he said.
On the impact of architecture, Claudio Chirino, regional manager of the company Arleds, has a different opinion. He pointed out that "the architecture of a building is not affected at all in terms of structure, since the new luminaires are of the same or similar dimensions to the existing ones. After the work the improvements are substantial in terms of the quality of the lighting."
When it comes to intervening
When the decision is made to renovate all the lighting of a building, which is usually accompanied by aesthetic or architectural modifications, different factors must be analyzed and taken into account. Among them are the state of the property, physical characteristics, construction system, construction materials used and type of use of the building.
"These parameters must be deepened with the professional who is going to carry out the renovation to determine the costs of the work to be carried out, the level of intervention and the lighting proposal," said Luz Piedad Mantilla.
In addition, the function it fulfills must be taken into account, whether it is ambient or decorative lighting and is prioritized according to the requirement.
One of the factors for which the owners and managers of the buildings to intervene show more concern is the total cost of the work. Although on first impression you may think that the costs are high, when you consider the benefits and long-term savings the consideration is different.
This was stated by Claudio Chirino, who maintains that "it is not expensive, given that the recovery of the investment made is before the first year of use. Taking into account the savings obtained".
For her part, the Architect of Osram of Colombia pointed out that the cost of the intervention is linked to the level and depth of the changes that want to be implemented. "In general, it is more profitable for the user to carry out a renovation and update of the existing lighting technology than to maintain a system that only generates monthly expenses in maintenance and energy consumption. The initial investment can be high compared to a traditional system, but the return on investment is perceived in the medium term depending on the use of the building, hours of operation and proposed technology."
Everything is with LED
As mentioned above, the most used technology for the renovation of lighting of a building is LED, but it is not the only one, since the choice of this depends directly on the type of project and building to intervene.
The procedure that is usually used is to make an analysis of each of the projects and when the necessary information is available, a virtual presentation is made so that the client can size the changes.
"Determining which is the most favorable technology depends on the type of project, the use of the building and the scope of the proposal. In general, our market tends to energy-saving products that do not generate additional temperature to the environment and that have a long life," explained Luz Piedad Matinlla.
He added that lighting designs with LED technology, long-life fluorescent systems (between 45,000 and 75,000 hours) and control systems that guarantee lighting control at sites where necessary, dimerize lighting and perform energy management can be proposed.
When executing this type of project, there are several difficulties that can be encountered and that designers and installers must know how to address so as not to affect the development of the work. In general, with good planning and preparation of previous lighting studies, the scope of the work, the cost and the technical feasibility can be clarified and thus avoid difficulties.
Some of them can be found at a technical constructive level depending on the type of building, the degree of intervention and possible regulations depending on the degree of conservation and architectural value of the property.
Also, according to Claudio Chirino, one of the difficulties frequently encountered is resistance to change. "It's a general thing because a lot of people think that all changes are expensive and have no advantages. After the work is finished, they see that the investment was worth it."
Three countries stand out
Around the world there is an awareness for the use of more environmentally friendly technologies, campaigns that are led by manufacturing companies, governments that promote these issues and even non-governmental organizations with initiatives such as Earth Hour, which seeks to raise awareness among the population in energy saving.
And in this global trend, Latin America is no exception. That is why it is common to see lighting renovation work in buildings with problems in energy consumption, expensive replacements, difficulty in scheduling maintenance and in cases of preservation and conservation of works of art.
Luz Piedad Mantilla pointed out that "this type of solutions is no longer considered a luxury, it is a need and obligation of our buildings to have lighting with effective bulbs and efficient luminaires within what our environment offers us".
In the region, the countries that most implement and accept the use of new technologies in different lighting projects are Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. The latter country is one of those that has the most advanced work in lighting renovation and is reflected in the companies of the industry, which in the case of Arled, last year had a growth of 120%. The most intervened buildings are in shopping centers, industrial plants, hotels, among others.
"End customers, lighting specifiers and in general all the people involved in our field, are promoting the technological renewal in lighting in existing projects," concluded Luz Piedad Mantilla.
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