News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Day-Brite Capri Omega Opens First LEED Certified Lighting Institute
TUPELO, Miss. (January 8, 2008) — Day-Brite Capri Omega (DCO) has opened the world’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certified Lighting Institute (LEED-CI), designed to educate visitors about the importance of good lighting and highlight the importance of energy conservation. The 5,000-square-foot DCO Lighting Institute, located within the company’s plant in Tupelo, Miss., will utilize products and techniques that represent the best lighting practices, balancing functionality, controllability and energy consumption in accordance with IESNA/ASHRAE guidelines.
“The demonstration of DCO’s lighting capabilities in both product and design configurations will be a centerpiece of the new facility,” said Jim O'Hargan, VP/General Manager. “The intended purpose is to be able to demonstrate lighting executions that satisfy energy code requirements for a particular application or task while improving on both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the overall environment.
“The Lighting Institute will itself be certified by LEED under the Commercial Interiors category, he added. “By following LEED guidelines, we improved on our original design intent and therefore want to be able to share this beneficial experience with our customers and visitors.”
The new facility will accommodate 40 visitors at a time. There are two main educational spaces in this new facility: a Mock-up room and a Technology Classroom. The Mock-up room has a ceiling that can be raised or lowered to duplicate the look of an actual installation. The Technology Classroom area was designed to showcase product introductions and will allow for side-by-side comparisons to make it easy to compare light performance in different applications.
The focus in that area will be on the aesthetics and rendered look of the luminaire, along with installed light output and energy consumption. The Technology Classroom includes other demonstration areas such as color booths where the fundamentals of light source technology is addressed; a general overhead lighting area of approximately 1000 square feet for addressing the basic lighting protocols in commercial lighting design with over 20 different lighting techniques possible; and a wall lighting interactions area where a variety of point and linear wall-washing and grazing executions are demonstrated.
“This Training & Education Center, which we have been discussing for years, is a very important milestone for our company,” said O'Hargan. “By having the Lighting Institute in our manufacturing plant, we can show our guests how we manufacture D|C|O lighting products. Few, if any, of our competitors can offer the same experience.”
Commissioning and Green Building Solutions (CxGBS), an Atlanta-based consulting firm, provided design and construction phase commissioning and LEED consulting for the DCO Lighting Institute.
CxGBS utilized its proprietary Holistic Commissioning™ Design Phase Commissioning Model which integrates sustainability while making sure that the quality-oriented process is being delivered to conform to the owner’s expectations for the facility. Holistic Commissioning includes the building envelope and mechanical and electrical systems, which affect greenhouse gases and indoor environmental quality.
“Holistic Commissioning is a continuing process that goes through the entire life of the building,” said H. Jay Enck, LEED AP, principal and founder of CxGBS. “We worked with the DCO team from the very start in the pre-design phase to establish sustainable objectives and criteria for the facility,” he said. “It was a collaborative team effort that allowed everyone to define their expectations and operational criteria, creating a solid foundation and ensuring that the team knew where it was going from the beginning.”
Below are some highlights:
- 40 percent reduction of water use within the building
- 35 percent reduction of lighting power in addition to proper use of daylight sensors and motion sensors
- 90 percent of equipment is Energy Star rated
- 50 percent of materials used in the project were manufactured within 500 miles
- Low emitting (low VOC content) adhesive, paints, and carpets were used
The state-of-the-art facility was designed to focus on DCO’s key competencies of innovation, manufacturing flexibility, and customer service. Consistent with the Genlyte corporate commitment, DCO will utilize the Lighting Institute to expand the service of the company to it’s customers through continued educational activities, demonstrations, and information exchange.
“On top of the regular training programs, the DCO Lighting Institute will host office, retail, sustainability and educational facilities programs focusing on the application of lighting and intended to educate owners and facility managers on how these improvements can impact their operational and capital budgets,” said Nick Bleeker, Business Development Director for DCO and Project Leader of the design and construction of the DCO Lighting Institute.
“Whether it’s looking at providing for a comfortable lighting execution for office areas where computer related tasks are being performed, or enhancing the look and appearance of merchandise in a retail space, or providing a proactive learning environment in an educational facility, owners and facility mangers can learn how their basic lighting design needs can be addressed with properly designed and integrated state-of-the-art technologies.”
About DCO
Day-Brite was founded in 1923 and moved to Tupelo in 1947 where it currently headquarters the Day-Brite Capri Omega (DCO) Divisions of the Genlyte Group Incorporated. Genlyte is the largest company in North America dedicated solely to lighting. DCO is dedicated exclusively to the design, manufacture and marketing of lighting fixtures in the fluorescent, emergency, HID indoor, HID outdoor, track lighting, down lighting, and commercial decorative lighting businesses serving the commercial, industrial and niche markets through the most recognized and respected sales organizations in the industry.
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