The National Lighting Bureau recently announced the winners in the 2025 Lighting Transformation Awards, co-sponsored by the National Association of Lighting Maintenance Companies (NALMCO). These projects recognize outstanding achievements in lighting retrofit projects that feature innovative solutions with minimal alteration to the existing building structure. This is the first year that a project is also being recognized with a Special Citation for Exemplary Design and Implementation of Lighting Controls, sponsored by the Lighting Controls Association.
The winning project receiving the Special Citation is Washington State School for the Blind in Vancouver, WA, which also won an Award of Excellence. Lighting controls design by Northwest Edison. Lighting control products by Avi-on.
Founded in 1911, the Washington State School for the Blind (WSSB) is a school that ensures every blind and low vision student in Washington has the support and services they need to succeed. One of the larger buildings on campus, Irwin, needed a lighting upgrade. WSSB, via their construction partners at Sabyr, worked with specifiers to create an enhanced lighting environment utilizing integrated lighting controls.
They had two options: 1. Standard dimming and occupancy and 2. Added tunable white, or “humancentric” lighting to be adjusted on a schedule or on-demand. The general assumption was that humancentric lighting would be cost-prohibitive, but Sabyr and the school remained hopeful.
The nuances of providing illumination to a population of visually impaired occupants proved to be fascinating. Though it may seem counter intuitive, tunable white lighting functionality is important to visually impaired populations for several reasons, including biological and wayfinding. The human factors piece of a retrofit is usually about light levels and visual comfort. In this case, Northwest Edision also had to educate themselvess on the ipRG cells in the eyes and why low vision is benefited by lighting that supports one’s biology. The designers were highly motivated to figure out how to get this accomplished.
Northwest Edison responded to Saybr’s RFP to upgrade the facility’s lighting to LED. The firm submitted documentation to Saybr that suggested that, for the same cost as non-tunable, they could use different manufacturers and add tunable white lighting features in their classrooms.
In a symbiotic collaboration with Form LC and Avi-on Controls, Northwest Edison created a scope of work that met the customer’s budget and included tunable white for the classrooms. WSSB chose to partner with Northwest Edison for the final project design and installation. The manufacturers used were Avi-on controls, ESI Lighting, Cree, and Day-O-Lite.By working with the local utility, Northwest Edison secured an incentive that refunded 10% of the project cost back to the school.
This project had challenges when it came to understanding occupant controls versus automatic controls as well as deciding on presets for the scene selections. The installation was smooth, but commissioning was trickier than any party expected. As new students arrive every year, classroom lighting needs could change as well. The control system from Avi-on is flexible enough to make changes quickly, get feedback, and deploy changes via remote access or in person.
The project manager for Saybr, Peggy Togioka, reports positive reviews, saying, “The new lighting at the Irwin Buildinghas made a huge impact on the facility and its occupants. Each classroom now has the capability to adjust the room lighting temperature for the comfort of their students.”
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