News and Events

Greenbuild International 2013

September 03 2013

Lightlouver will be an exhibitor at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA, November 20-21, 2013. Stop by booth #2224 to check out the Lightlouver Daylightling System!

New Operations Manager Bob Stephan

March 18 2013

New Operations Manager Bob Stephan joined LightLouver LLC in June of 2012 as the Operations Manager and runs the day-to-day operations at LightLouver's Colorado production facility.  Mr. Stephan has over 15 years of management experience in the building materials industry.  Prior to joining LightLouver LLC, he spent seven years as the Operations Manager and Estimating Manager for a German window manufacturer, importing hand-made wood windows and doors from Europe to North America.  Mr. Stephan also worked for eight years at Universal Forest Products (UFPI), as the Customer Service Manager of their Colorado office.  Mr. Stephan graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1990 with a Business Administration degree.

Exciting New Projects in 2012

March 18 2013

LightLouver LLC supplied LightLouver units for many exciting projects in 2012. A few of the projects that incorporated the LightLouver Daylighting System are as follows:

 

Salida High School in Salida, Colorado

McKenny Hills Elementary School in Silver Springs, Maryland

Brattleboro Food Cooperative in Brattleboro, Vermont

Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory, Georgia Tech University, Atlanta Georgia

Franklin High School in Sacramento, California

Fauquier High School in Warrenton, Virginia

Grand Junction Police Station in Grand Junction, Colorado

West Virginia State Office Building in Logan, West Virginia

Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, New York

Intermountain Healthcare Integrated Materials, Ancillary services and Transportation

in Salt Lake City, Utah

Texas Instruments Office Building in Dallas, Texas

Siemens Office Building in Cary, North Carolina

 

As you can see, design teams have incorporated the LightLouver Daylighting System into a variety of building types in a variety of locations throughout the U.S. We will be adding images of some these projects to the Project Portfolio page of the web site in the coming weeks. Please contact us if you have any questions about these or other projects where the LightLouver Daylighting System has been installed.

Michael Holtz Presents Paper at World Renewable Energy Forum

August 21 2012

Michael Holtz, FAIA, a founder and principal of LightLouver LLC, presented a paper at the recent World Renewable Energy Forum / American Solar Energy Society Conference in Denver, Colorado. Co-authored with Zack Rogers, P.E., Director of Engineering, the paper, entitled “ Comparative Evaluation of Side-Daylighting Strategies”, evaluates five general side-daylighting strategies – passive optical daylighting system (LightLouver™ Daylighting System), interior and exterior light shelves,  and automated interior and exterior shades or blinds -- on a quantitative and qualitative basis.  Evaluation criteria included the following: deep uniform daylight distribution, solar/glare control, energy savings, installed cost, and architectural integration. Results from lighting simulation using the Radiance software were used in the comparative evaluation.

A PDF of the paper is available for download by clicking the following link:

Comparative Evaluation of Side-Daylighting Strategies (PDF)

Primary conclusions from this comparative evaluation of common side-daylighting strategies were as follows:

  • Daylighting must be a primary strategy for complying with current and future energy and environmental regulations in commercial buildings. Low power density electric lighting alone, whether through fluorescent or LED lighting, will not be sufficient to meet stringent current and future energy code requirements.
  • Side-daylighting approaches will be the primary means for daylighting multi-story commercial buildings. Thus, architectural massing and orientation will have a large influence on achieving significant daylighting contribution.
  • Side-daylighting approaches must effectively address the daylighting design challenges -- collecting and redirecting daylight deep into the daylit space without attendant glare and direct sunlight patches on work surfaces -- or they will not be accepted by the building owners and occupants, or the building design profession.
  • Only one of the common side-daylighting approaches evaluated - the LightLouver Daylighting System - effectively addresses the daylighting design challenges of glare, solar control, deep daylight distribution, and integration with electric lighting, daylight responsive controls, HVAC systems, and interior design elements. Consequently, the remaining side-daylighting strategies are generally compromised by the building occupants through their actions, such as keeping the blinds or shades closed all the time, or placing cardboard panels in the “daylight windows” above light shelves to block direct sunlight from striking their work surfaces or creating disabling glare in their field of view.
  • Glare or limited daylight distribution are the primary limitations of most side-daylighting approaches. If side-daylighting strategies are to be widely used in multi-story commercial buildings, they must be able to daylight a large portion of the floor plate – deep daylight penetration, and do so without glare and direct sunlight striking work surfaces.
  • The LightLouver Daylighting System currently best addresses the daylighting design challenges. Looking at the qualitative and quantitative evaluation criteria and the analysis results, the LightLouver Daylighting System appears to satisfactorily address more criteria then any of the other evaluated side-daylighting strategies.
  • The deepest and most uniform daylighting is provided by the LightLouver Daylighting System. While interior or exterior light shelves can allow for daylight deeper into a space, they have not been optically designed to collect and uniformly distribute sunlight throughout the year (angle in incidence = angle of reflectance), and to provide complete glare /solar control. For most manufactured or site built light shelf designs, during low (winter) sun conditions, sunlight will come over the top of the light shelve and create glare conditions at the window and allow direct sunlight patches on work surfaces. The LightLouver Daylighting System intercepts direct sunlight (down to a 5o cut-off angle) and redirects this sunlight up and deep into the space, thus minimizing any glare and direct sunlight penetration onto work surfaces.
  • When direct sunlight strikes south, east and west facing fenestration, interior or exterior window shades and blinds must be closed to block direct sunlight from entering the space and creating disabling glare, high contrast ratios, and direct sunlight patches on work surfaces. Thus, side-daylighting strategies, such as automated blinds and shades, are limited in the depth of daylighting they can provide. However, passive optical daylighting devices, such as the LightLouver Daylighting System, can continue to collect and distribute sunlight during periods of direct sunlight on the fenestration, as their optical geometry has been design to redirect sunlight while minimizing glare and eliminating direct sunlight patches on work surfaces.