LIGHTING GUIDE | LG8 GUIDE LEDs and the internet of things have transformed specification in the lighting industry, and this has been reflected in the updated Lighting Guide 8 Lighting for museums and art galleries. Guide author Mark Sutton Vane summarises the key changes The art of illumination T he previous version of the SLL LG8, which covers the lighting of museums and art galleries, was published in 2015. However, there have been a number of dramatic changes in lighting technology in the past six years, so an update was required. Many different professionals, with varying amounts of expertise and experience, are involved in the lighting of museums and galleries. The responsibility for lighting can end up with someone who is not an experienced lighting designer, so this guide aims to help people with all levels of expertise. Hopefully, though, it may make some non-specialists realise they need to employ a lighting designer. LG8 is not just about museums and galleries, but covers a wide range of building types. It is also about historic interiors, which are displays in themselves. This new version aims to help the lighting designer, or person responsible for the lighting, to emphasise the story, themes or brand of a project, whatever its nature. As in other sectors, it is the technology of how light is made and controlled that has changed drastically. The 2015 version of the guide still had, quite rightly, much information and not as much about LED ones. At the time, LED technology was in a rapid made clear that they were likely to be the principal source of light for museums and galleries in the future which has, indeed, turned out to be the case. to those types of light source have been removed from the new guide, and replaced with more detail about LEDs and the technology that exists to support them. This includes information about drivers and dimming. LEDs have even changed the economics of access for maintenance. As they last needed maintenance, rather than have the infrastructure for big, heavy, high-level access platforms. Another lighting technology revolution that has occurred recently is the development of the internet of things, so this and various other innovative lighting control and communication systems are also covered. While technology has evolved rapidly in recent years, humans and their eyes, and their feelings, have not. Light has not changed. Schemes for museums and galleries are among the most human-centred projects on which a lighting designer can work. So, this guide covers the subjective and human responses to light extensively, and The publication starts with the foundations of lighting design, and explains what light can do and how it can be controlled. This is important, given that some readers will not be lighting specialists. Where museums and galleries are concerned, there colours and relative intensities right that can only be solved if the principles of light are understood. The three great variables brightness, colour and direction are analysed and explained, and the guide helps describe how they control glare, affect the softness of shadows and the rendering of colour. It is not the responsibility of the lighting designer to know what an artefact is made of and to decide what light level it can stand 46 October 2021 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Oct21 pp46-47 LG8 museum guide Supp.indd 46 24/09/2021 17:39