Incandescent-colored LED lamps are also used around the entrance of a house.
A park in Azabu no Oka has LED-lit bridges.
One of the bridges uses LED lights at the bottom of its parapets.
Solar cell panels are standing beside the park. They have an elaborate design on their backs.
Continued from Welcome to Toyota 'LED Town' (1).
"Green Avenue Azabu no Oka" is a residential area, where all outdoor lamps use LEDs. After learning about the features of those LED lights, I waited until dusk and walked on the streets illuminated by LED lights.
While walking around Azabu no Oka, I thought, "I can't say it's bright, but it is as bright as it needs to be." The sidewalks, roads and plants were not completely lit.
Nevertheless, I never found it difficult to walk in the residential area at dusk because the sidewalks were illuminated by both the street lamps and the lights from the gate of each house. Also, the walls of each house were illuminated with lamps. Therefore, I rarely felt it was visually "dark."
"For residents, illumination is necessary only at key spots," said Tsutomu Ochiai of Member & Ochiai Design Office, who is in charge of the lighting design of the residential area.
Some may wonder, "Is it really safe to walk on the streets that are not bright enough?" Commenting on this point, Ochiai said there is no safety problem. Because the entire area is not widely illuminated, the shadows of people are very visible, making it easier for residents to notice someone walking on the streets, he said.
Moreover, security cameras that can shoot video even at a low luminance of 0.02lx or less are deployed all over the area so that vehicle type can be determined even in the dark, he said.
Azabu no Oka has had many visitors from other lighting and housing companies. And they highly appreciate the sedate atmosphere that pervades the neighborhood after dusk when the lights are turned on in addition to its beautiful streetscape, Ochiai said.
The LED lights and the illuminating method used in Azabu no Oka are drawing much interest as well, he said. It is because there have been only a few cases of illuminating an entire neighborhood with LEDs, resulting in a shortage of, for example, light distribution data for reference.
At Azabu no Oka, the shape of LED lamps, light distribution characteristics and light quality (such as hue and brightness) were gradually determined by repeating tests, Ochiai said.
Not only the outdoor lamps in the area where houses are built but also the lamps in the parks are elaborately laid out. There is a park with a pond near each of the two ends of Azabu no Oka. One of the park has two bridges, which are equipped with parapets, crossed over the pond. And LEDs are used to highlight those bridges.
When viewed from a distance, the outlines of the bridges looked as if they were floating in the air. I approached and examined the bridges' lighting, and found that both bridges had LED lights embedded in their parapets. One of the bridges had LED lights embedded in the bottom of the parapets to light the ground area with a luminance of 4lx.
The other bridge had LED lights in the handrails of the parapets to light mainly the area around the hands. The luminance of these lights is 7lx. I think bridges are usually lit up from the bottom.
The bridges are structured on assembled metal frames covered with cedar material. As LED lamps with an incandescent color were used, they gave me a warm impression.
The white LED modules were embedded in the metal part of the bridges. It was easy to incorporate them in the parapets because the size of a light source can be made small by using LED lights, Ochiai said. There seems to be no problem in terms of heat radiation because LED lights are housed in the metal part.
Furthermore, solar cell panels and wind power generators are set up beside the parks to supply about 1/6 of the power needed for the LED lights in the parks. The solar cell panels have an elaborate design with an arched back. And the pillar supporting the solar cell panels is as tall as the plants in the park, preventing them from standing out.
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