As the traditional grid ceilings began to disappear and open-to-structure space design gained popularity, suspended luminaire options garnered a greater market share. Not only did suspended luminaires add requirements and provide more opportunities for light output, such as bi-directional optics, they also became a more visible element in the space. As such, manufacturers increasingly focused on high-quality housing designs and streamlined suspension options.
Luminaire manufacturers and lighting designers also took advantage of this visual real estate to create interesting form factors and decorative housing designs, allowing for more than just the standard white good options for these
open environments.
In parallel, the movement away from the grid or drywall ceiling presented an opportunity for specialty ceiling designs. Initially, these open-to-structure ceilings presented several challenges relative to acoustics and esthetics. On the acoustics front, grid ceilings using acoustical ceiling tiles (ACT) help absorb sound waves emanating from the space and lower sound transmission between rooms. Eliminating ceilings results in increased reverberation and less comfortable acoustic environments for occupants.
Esthetically, mechanical and electrical hardware typically hidden above the enclosed ceiling, including electrical cabling and duct work, would now be exposed. The cost of cleaning up these elements through more organized layouts or painting can be very high. As a result of these open-to-structure problems, baffle arrays and acoustic clouds became more common, primarily to help dampen acoustic reverberation issues, but also to help block the view to the ceiling and house critical hardware, such as HVAC, sprinkler systems, luminaires,
or speakers.
Over the past several years, architects and ceiling manufacturers, much like their lighting counterparts, have viewed open ceilings as a blank canvas to innovate with creative ceiling forms and materials. Established manufacturers and emerging specialty ceiling companies have been experimenting with complex, multi-dimensional ceilings, leveraging new materials like felt, metal, perforated wood, and using computerized, algorithmic processes to deliver sophisticated and vibrant designs. As a result, the specialty ceiling category has seen a dramatic increase in market share relative to traditional ceiling types.
As great as this movement has been for interior architecture, the growing category of specialty ceilings has led to major challenges with integrating lighting solutions achieving the desired lighting functionality and a seamlessly integrated esthetic. Challenges along the design, specification, sourcing, and installation process include selecting the right form factors which will not disrupt the ceiling design, puzzle-piecing lighting and ceiling products, co-ordinating the appropriate textiles or finishes across products, determining the correct trade: the ceiling or the electrical contractor who is responsible for what component, and co-ordinating the activity at the job site accordingly.
Understanding how ceiling and lighting design can be a collaborative activity
As specialty ceilings—along with their most effective integrated lighting solutions—become more prevalent in architecture, the primary objective of the specifier, contractor and manufacturer communities will be to ensure a finished installed ceiling system achieves the right balance of lighting, acoustic, esthetic, and budgetary requirements. The more complex a ceiling system becomes, the more the elements of the system need to be designed together, and the more each stakeholder needs to be engaged to help achieve this balance. Today, the tools exist to enable this iterative, cooperative design, but the limitations of manufacturer standard products, along with the historical roles established for specifiers and contractors, make the co-ordination difficult.
