Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic home cuts energy bill 60% with over 2,000 LEDs

Dining and dormitory area, Taliesin West
Dining and dormitory area, Taliesin West (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic estates are being retrofitted with ultra efficient LEDs as part of an overall effort to reduce energy use, while keeping the design sense of the properties close to Wright’s vision.

After an energy audit of the property, caretakers learned that they could offset the utility costs by 51 percent by providing more energy efficient lighting.

The designers followed three main tenants when refurbishing Frank Lloyd Wright's two homes, Taliesin and Taliesin West in Wisconsin and Arizona, respectively. The first was to maintain the warm, incandescent feel, even when removing the incandescent bulbs and replacing them with LEDs. The second was to reduce energy usage, as they are aiming to produce net-zero houses that create more energy than they use. And the third was to reduce maintenance and operating costs by installing lights that wouldn't need to be changed as much.

After examining LEDs from a number of companies, the ones from OSRAM Sylvania were selected because they most fit the bill for what was needed. These super efficient lights are expected to offset utility costs by 51% between both buildings and 60% at Taliesin West alone.


Frank Lloyd Wright is widely revered as one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, designing over 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed.  He was highly interested in creating harmony between humanity and the environment, pioneering a philosophy he called organic architecture.  Transforming his homes into net-zero works of art is a testament to his ideals.



Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Source: Minds.

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