Lumid's architectural lighting combines aesthetics and high performance

Since its creation in 1991, Lumid has become the North American leader (especially in the United States, where the American market represents eighty percent of the company's current clientele) in the domain of lighting and luminescent "architectural structures". By means of advanced technology and manufacturing methods, industrial designer Dominique Alary's company produces made-to-order creations of striking and innovative calibre for many architects, interior designers and lighting design specialists.

For Lumid, the search for original solutions and new applications for existing materials as well as the development of increasingly higher-performance technological tools is essential. The company distinguished itself in 1996 with its first big lighting project at the Hull Casino in Canada. Designed and manufactured by Lumid, these impressive lamps would also serve as discreet aesthetic housing for surveillance cameras. In the United States, for the lighting project carried out in 1999 at Staples Center Arena in Los Angeles, the type of design and the choice of material (aluminium) prompted Lumid to favour the technique of water cutting, a practice that was not at all common in lighting at the time. A decisive project that allowed the company to carve out a choice position in the American market.

A successful marriage of material and technology
The will to excel and to innovate has led the company to develop its own tools. The following project carried out in 2003 is a good example of technical and technological prowess.

Developed and manufactured by Lumid, 'Lightingtools', which can be characterized as 'big technology in a small package', are more compact and economical high-performance photometric devices that can be integrated with a greater variety of lighting, because of their spherical as well as linear shape. The 'wall of light' project for the Sushi Sake Restaurant at the Green Valley Ranch Casino in Las Vegas incorporates this versatile system brilliantly.

At Sushi Sake, the material and lighting merge to form a luminescent wave, a real technical challenge at the manufacturing level. Of a conical shape like its matching piece above the restaurant's aquarium, the luminous wall is composed of sections of translucent polymer (the wall's exterior), connected by joints of MDF and steel uprights. The whole conceals the key ingredient: the optical film. Attached to the interior polymer surface, the film picks up the light that comes from two illumination centres - the miniscule and very flexible printed circuits, the Lightingtools, housed in the base and at the structure's highest point - and distributes it over the entire surface of this striking structure.

The transition to colours is controlled through an internal DMX interface, once again designed and programmed by Lumid, changing imperceptibly from yellow, to red, to mauve, to blue and, finally, to green. The ingenious Dominique Alary has used her own version of the DMX interface control, adapting it to the design of this wave of light. "The DMX interface is an electronic 'language' common in stage lighting, but its use in the architectural lighting sector is definitely new", she points out. This system allows for spectacular effects: the play of varied colours and intensities for each lamp equipped with such a system. An enormous world of possibilities is thus open to creation.

Lumid's path
Lumid is a specialist in luminescent architectural lighting, working in the commercial, industrial and hospitality sectors. It has many ambitious achievements in Canada, notably in the Justice Building in the nation's capitol, Ottawa, and at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Montreal) and Pearson (Toronto) airports, as well as in the United States, with, among others, the Mall in Millenia (Orlando), the MTA Tower (New York) and the Jordan Creek Mall (Ohio). Lumid also lights up hotels and casinos, for example, the Morongo (California) and the Borgata (Atlantic City), as well as Disney World amusement parks in California and Hong Kong. The company is currently working on the creation of fireplaces for presidential suites at Hotel Bellagio in Las Vegas, where the play of opacity and transparency of glass is determined by an electric current. As well, at the Market Mall in Calgary in western Canada, a luminous light fitting that incorporates Italian onyx, glass and steel represents a major first, onyx having never been used in this way before. Lumid also expects to direct its attention to the health sector, with future projects involving chromather-apy.