ERCO at Light + Building 2018: spatially displayed innovations and new standards for individual lighting

Lüdenscheid, April 2018. Light is the fourth dimension of architecture. Visitors from all over the world experienced innovative product and lighting solutions in spatial contexts on the newly designed ERCO Light + Building fair stand. Subdivided into the areas of Work, Community, Shop, Culture and Contemplation, the stand demonstrated lighting tools in their applications, thus underlining the relevance of perception-oriented lighting. The multitude of new technologies and the ERCO individual services presented for the first time reflected the requirements of modern architectural lighting - individual lighting solutions for various lighting tasks.

Light is the fourth dimension of architecture. And every form of architecture is unique. Based on this guiding philosophy, the new ERCO fair stand enabled product innovations to be experienced one-to-one in their spatial context. These included new technologies such as the Casambi Bluetooth control, highly specialised zoom lenses with adjustable light distributions for lighting works of art and spotlights with COB LEDs for cost-efficient retail lighting. Lighting solutions demonstrated their effect within specific applications in application rooms designed especially for the purpose. For example the Work area with new downlights for track showed new possibilities for genuinely flexible office lighting. In this way ERCO demonstrated how light supports concentrated work and dialogue within a digitally networked knowledge society, as well as offering investment security because luminaires can simply be taken along with a relocation. To support lighting designers in creating customer-individual lighting solutions, ERCO also offers its 'ERCO individual' service for project-specific product solutions that can adapt precisely to customer needs. All new products and lighting solutions could be viewed and experienced within a spacious presentation area. The stand was significantly enlarged and was not only completely redesigned but also in a modular way. This makes it a particularly sustainable system that can be flexibly reused in the future. The ERCO fair stand presented itself as a platform for the dialogue between lighting designers and manufacturers and as an innate example of contemporary trade fair architecture.

ERCO individual: new production technologies for project-related lighting tools

Perception-oriented lighting design is always related to the users and their surrounding architecture and therefore demands a maximum level of individuality. ERCO presented a service in the form of 'ERCO individual' that enables individual product concepts or the adaptation of product ranges to structural conditions, and that also guarantees fast availability. The company therefore enables extensive options for individualisation and simultaneously reveals itself as a specialised partner for sophisticated projects. Thanks to its high level of expertise, decades of experience in special product construction and investments in new production methods and technologies, ERCO is also able to realise short-term projects together with lighting designers. Ranging from the individualisation of product ranges, e.g. via other LEDs or special colours, to the further development of modular photometric systems, the new ERCO individual services provide greater planning security and design flexibility during the implementation of exclusive architectural projects.

New lighting tools with chip-on-board technology: maximum diversity for cost-efficient retail lighting

Light sells. This is why the retail sector in particular places high demands on individual light spectra and also requires a range of light distributions. ERCO presented one solution for this with its new luminaires featuring chip-on-board LED technology as an economical supplement to its spotlights with high-power LEDs. Users benefit from eight finely nuanced graduations with light colour and light spectrum. ERCO also presented a photometric approach specifically optimised for this technology in the form of its in-house developed lens system. The advantages: five light distributions interchanged without tools including oval flood and wallwash, a traditional appearance of light emission with just one visible light point, and a softly diminishing light beam. The Optec and Gimbal product families further developed for COB LED and the new Quintessence Pinhole directional spotlights thus enable flexible shop lighting at competitive prices.

The highlights for perception-oriented architectural lighting

Light improves the effect and quality of stay of a room. This principle is reflected in the lighting company's product innovations available in the market since January 2018 as solutions for greater visual comfort and quality of light. ERCO showed developments in the Compar family with Compar Square surface-mounted luminaires, Compar pendant luminaires with tunable white component and Compar recessed luminaires with up to 9840lm. The new Quintessence double focus downlights and double focus wallwashers offer optimum lighting solutions for rooms with heights of eight metres and more. Stella spotlights, floodlights and wallwashers are unusually high lumen-output lighting tools with up to 4430lx from a distance of ten metres. The new Skim downlights for track bring flexibility into office lighting and ERCO also presented its new Gimbal spotlights and floodlights for on-site ceiling channels for high quality retail applications. In addition to its new products for 2018, ERCO also gave their visitors a sneak preview of several technologically sophisticated innovations due to become available in the coming months: the control and networking of luminaires via Casambi integrated into the existing Optec product family for track. The Jilly range of luminaires, including a downlight for track (available from 2019) for standard-compliant office workplace lighting. Also the new zoom lens for adjustable round and oval light distributions as an ideal lighting tool for flexible display lighting in galleries and museums.

At the close of the fair, ERCO Managing Director Kay Pawlik drew a highly positive conclusion: "Contact at a personal level with technical and creative planners and designers at Light + Building confirmed that in addition to flexibility, the digitalisation of lighting technology is an essential attribute of sophisticated architectural lighting. By integrating Casambi's Bluetooth control into our lighting tools we offer a highly contemporary solution that further strengthens our leading role in architectural lighting."