Boston’s first official skyscraper, the Marriott Custom House Tower, has undergone a long-awaited lighting makeover to reclaim its skyline prominence in a smart and sustainable way. Formerly lit by incandescent-based fixtures that had fallen into disrepair, the Tower has been restored to its fully-illuminated state using LED fixtures that consume just one third the energy of the previous sources. The permanent installation was unveiled in October as part of illuminaleBOSTON 08 – a five-day, citywide lighting festival founded by Lana Nathe of Light Insight Design Studio.
The Tower’s lighting scheme was conceptualized by Lam Partners Inc., who had also designed the former lighting treatment 20 years ago. Since that time great progress has been made in energy-efficient and longer-life sources, particularly LEDs. The design team chose new LED-based lighting fixtures from Philips Color Kinetics that, in addition to consuming less energy, require far less maintenance with a projected lifetime of more than 20 years at six hours of use per day. An approximate total of 125 eW® Blast Powercore and eW Graze Powercore fixtures now illuminate the Tower from the 17th floor to the peak, while energy-efficient metal halide fixtures from Philips Lightolier illuminate the building’s base.
– from newscenter.philips