In conjunction with the London Design Festival 2007, leading British Designer Tom Dixon will take over London’s Trafalgar Square with a large lighting installation. But it gets better than just an installation: following the success of the 2006 “ChairGrab,” Dixon will give away 1000 lights on Wednesday, September 19th! The “GLOWB” is a low-energy, CFL light that will be displayed in a chandelier cluster- get there fast to get your hands on some free green design!
Powered by a renewable energy source the lights will be lit for 3 hours per day from 7pm – 10pm Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday 19th from 5pm – 10pm. On Wednesday at 5pm 1000 lights will be given away to Londoners on a first come first served basis. To further promote the use of CFL’s, GLOWB will give away a 1000 CFL light bulbs a day, totaling 3,500 light bulbs being given away and used over the course of the installation.
The lights are a new design from Dixon, called GLOWB (above), powered by renewable electricity the installation intends to highlight the amount of energy that can be saved by switching from incandescent bulbs. The project is in a collaboration with the UK’s Energy Saving Trust.
The Festival explains:
“With plans afoot to ban the sale of the traditional incandescent bulb in the EU, Tom Dixon will use low energy light bulbs and recycled objects to demonstrate how using sustainable and energy efficient solutions can create a dramatic aesthetic.”
From Dixon:
“Low energy bulbs suffer from an image problem, where it is commonly thought that they make an unattractive light. What better way to change this perception than to make an event that allows Londoners to witness a massive installation of 500 lamps allowing everybody to take a part of it home to illuminate their lives whilst using 80% less energy than they would previously have used. Free design for Londoners!”
+ DIXON Press Release
+ GLOWB: The Energy Saving Lightbulb
+ London Design Festival 2007
LESS ENERGY USE=MORE PERSONAL FREEDOMS
So the ‘glowb’ has a more pleasant luminescence ? That’s great ,because anyway you slice it, energy saving flourescent bulbs give off horrible lighting. It will be nice to see what these ‘glowbs’ actually look like. Hopefully they’ll be a success in England and get released in the USA.
Those “eco” lights are using less power than an incandescent bulb to make the same amount of light, but inside, there is some mercury and other really toxic subtances… That’s an example of how it is complicated to be green : you have to consider the whole life cycle of an object. So those lamps are not very green.
The mercury issue is a scare tactic used by poorly educated and/or misleading opponents of CFLs.
The mercury in a CFL is LESS than that produced by a coal-fired power plant to produce the additional electricity used to power an incandescent bulb. In addition, the mercury is contained – i.e. it can be recycled or disposed of properly (vs. mercury from a power plant that is put into the air we breath). As far as life cycle goes, lasting 10 times longer than incandescant is also pretty good.
Final verdict: CFL = green unless you are off the grid. (LED = really green!)
BTW, CFL light is also MUCH better quality than it was 5-10 years ago.
There’s a lot more to Glowb than the technology inside them. Find out about all the thought that’s gone into the packaging, distribution and recycling of your old incandescent bulbs. This not just a light bulb, it’s something of a green crusade.
[...] part of the awesome installation of eco GLOWB lights currently at Trafalgar Square in London for the Design Festival, Tom Dixon will be giving away 1000 [...]