Welcome to Toyota 'LED Town' (3)

Continued from Welcome to Toyota 'LED Town' (2).

One of the houses in the residential area "Azabu no Oka," where only LED lamps are used for outdoor lighting, experimentally incorporated LED lights for indoor lighting.

It is a model home for Azabu no Oka. When I opened the entrance door, incandescent light emitted from an LED lamp, which is the same color as the outdoor lighting, caught my eye. Though fluorescent lights are used in part of the indoor lighting, the majority of the interior is illuminated using incandescent-colored white LED lights.

The model home has both custom-made LED lights and ready-made ones distributed by lighting equipment manufacturers. The open-ceiling entrance area is illuminated by an LED lamp hanging down from the ceiling of the second floor. This lamp is composed of line-shaped LED modules.

The line-shaped module is made by lining up incandescent white LEDs. And an array of light emitting dots can be seen in the module. However, the areas illuminated with LED lights do not show any variation in brightness.

This long and slim module is used in various places in the house not only for the main lights but also for the lights inside the curtain boxes. LED lights are appropriate for illuminating areas, such as inside curtain boxes, where replacing lights can be difficult because of their long life.

Rooms are illuminated by multiple LED lights

In addition to the line-shaped LED modules, many LED downlights are used in each room. The line-shaped modules are used to indirectly illuminate wider areas, while downlights are used to directly illuminate the areas around the hands and feet. The downlights are made of multiple incandescent white LEDs, like the line-shaped modules.

In both types of the LED lamps, light is emitted from multiple light sources. Looking closely at the light emitted from the downlight, I noticed a slight difference from the light of a fluorescent light or an incandescent light bulb.

When I placed my hand in the area illuminated by the downlight, the outline of the shadow of the hand on the floor was more blurred than usual. This is because multiple shadows were overlapping. But this seems to be the only difference between the light emitted from an LED downlight and that of an incandescent bulb or a fluorescent lamp.

Compared with rooms illuminated by general light sources, the rooms in the model home are equipped with more lamps. In Japan, rooms are usually illuminated by one fluorescent light, normally embedded in or hanging from the center of the ceiling.

In the model home, each room has a number of lights scattered on the ceiling, the walls and other areas, which light up the room in combination. This house also uses a hybrid-type main light composed of both fluorescent and LED light sources, which is intended to offer more brightness.

Furthermore, there are other LED lamps used in the house, such as the ones embedded in the walls and ceilings to light the steps and washbasin. And there is even a portable LED light, which is a lantern-shaped LED lamp for the Japanese style room. The line-shaped module is attached to both sides of the lamp to indirectly illuminate the central area of the lamp.

According to Tsutomu Ochiai, head of M&O Design Office, which worked out the plans and designs for illuminating Azabu no Oka, three prototypes were made before he was satisfied with the lamp.

This model home will be sold in the future, together with the interior LED lights, for more than ¥60 million (approx US$668,000), according to Toyota Smile Life. The company did not disclose the cost for interior LED lights but said "they are reasonably priced."

• [Column] Residential Area to Open with Streets Illuminated Only by LED Lights
• Welcome to Toyota 'LED Town' (1)
• Welcome to Toyota 'LED Town' (2)

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