The new aesthetic lighting concept has won the Red Dot: Best of the Best award as well as the German Innovation Award
The international technology group SCHOTT’s latest lighting innovation “LuminaLine” has not yet been on the market for three months and has already earned two prestigious international awards. Following the German Innovation Award 2018, LuminaLine has now also received the Red Dot: Best of the Best Award 2018.
The Red Dot Award is one of the most important design competitions in the world. A 40-member jury of international design experts individually evaluates original products. Evaluation criteria include degree of innovation, functionality, aesthetic quality and emotional impact.
The German Innovation Award was initiated by the German Design Council (Rat für Formgebung) and distinguishes products and solutions across all industries that differ from previous solutions above all in terms of user centring and added value. The nomination procedure is unique: only companies proposed by the expert committees and scouts of the German Design Council can participate.
SCHOTT LuminaLine came away the winner in the Materials category despite competition from 5,600 entries out of 55 countries, winning over a jury of 40 internationally recognized design experts. LuminaLine is also one of the final three nominees for the Red Dot: Luminary, the highest award presented in the Red Dot Design Award for design concepts. LuminaLine had previously prevailed as the German Innovation Award Winner 2018.
According to Stephan Schabacker, Director of Sales Automotive at SCHOTT Lighting and Imaging, it is no coincidence that SCHOTT LuminaLine received both an innovation and design award. “LuminaLine is a particularly strong concept because this component can be used in so many ways, both as a versatile design element and as a resilient component for particularly harsh environments. LuminaLine has its own aesthetics in both the illuminated and non-illuminated state and is easy to recycle as a glass component.”
LuminaLine is technically based on a glass composite whose luminance is bundled by a fibre optic – the soul. This creates an interplay of light and transparency that makes new designs possible. From a functional perspective, LuminaLine is also suitable for using concentrated homogeneous light for industrial and medical applications. However, the lighting technology is strengthened by the thermally toughened clad glass that surrounds the soul. The clad is resistant to physical and chemical loads and withstands UV radiation and temperatures up to 400°C without any problems.
LuminaLine shows its particular strength when it comes to the lighting concept’s versatility, which opens up creative applications for demanding markets. In interior design, for example, LuminaLine makes completely new concepts possible: light guides can be used as illuminated room dividers or be integrated into furniture, floors and aquariums. As contour and functional lighting, LuminaLine can illuminate day and night designs in various ways and integrates seamlessly into its surroundings.
In the household appliance industry, it enables ovens that communicate with users using light colours, shining green light when the pizza is ready, for instance. Thanks to heat resistance up to 400°C, the new light guides handle such tasks with ease. This strength in conjunction with chemical resistance also facilitates its use in medicine, where materials are exposed to extreme stresses during sterilization.
The automotive and traffic industries also offer many application possibilities. Reliable, aesthetic contour and functional lighting is playing an increasingly important role in making the car an oasis of well-being. LuminaLine is ideally suited, for instance, for vehicle exterior lighting and enables aesthetic and reliable functional or contour lighting – as an illuminated entry aid or for accentuating exterior doors. “Where visibility used to be the focus, lighting is now used as a form of user experience,” Schabacker explains.
However, the future of mobility must not only apply to vehicles. SCHOTT LuminaLine also turns traffic signal lighting into a design element. The light guides could indicate with a green light on the platform or in transit that trains or buses will soon be arriving, or signal with a yellow light that it will be another five minutes.