It’s All Wellness Nowadays

Sep 16, 2022
It’s All Wellness Nowadays

By Paul Tarricone

LD+A Magazine | October 2022
LD+A Magazine, October 2022 Issue

Once upon a time, LD+A published an annual theme issue on “sustainable design.” We sought out content on energy-efficient projects, asked some leading authorities to tackle the topic, dove into the latest buzzwords, and off we went. But as our longtime columnist Bill Warren was fond of saying, once efficacious luminaires squeezed all the excess watts out of lighting power density, the law of diminishing returns kicked in. There were only marginal energy savings to be found. All lighting became green lighting, so labeling an LD+A issue as such seemed redundant. What made all this happen? LEDs. 

So, once upon a time, we published “LED application” theme issues. We sought out projects showing LEDs in action—charting the evolution from sneaker lights and movie steps to architectural applications. We asked our contributors to predict the growth curve and identify obstacles to adoption. But like “sustainable design,” we eventually learned there was no need for an LED theme issue. The question was once, “Are LEDs ready for prime time?” Then they became the light source in virtually every project. As Chevy Chase observed as the title character in Fletch, “It’s all ball bearings nowadays.”

That brings us to this month’s LD+A theme, which presents a similar Fletch-like phenomenon: It’s all light and wellness nowadays. The pages within include the usual suspects like color tuning and green design in familiar applications such as hospitals and schools, but light and health’s tentacles have begun to reach into some unusual spaces. Would you believe a firehouse? A department store? It makes one wonder what the next wellness LD+A theme issue might include.