20 years of Light + Building: setting trends in lighting and building technology

The 20th anniversary edition of the international trade fair for lighting systems and building technology Light + Building will be held from 8 to 13 March 2020 in Frankfurt am Main. The global exhibition, industry networking and business platform will once again showcase the leading trends, technologies and products in the fields of lighting, electrical engineering, home and building automation.

The previous edition of Light + Building in March 2018 was attended by a total of 2719 exhibitors from 55 countries, and over 220 864 visitors from 177 countries got acquainted with the technical innovations demonstrated at the Frankfurt Exhibition Center. About 70% of the exhibits were presented by international companies, while 52% of the visitors came from abroad.

Next year’s edition of the forum, organized by Messe Frankfurt, will highlight the interconnectedness of intelligent building automation systems and the impact of future-oriented lighting. The show’s top themes will be “Connecting. Pioneering. Fascinating”. The unifying motto of technological innovation will be “dynamic digitalization”. This will focus on the means of progressive energy management, which can be regulated by intelligent building automation systems.

Connecting

According to the organizers of Light + Building, connecting is among the leading topics worldwide as far as lighting and building technology is concerned. Its key elements are connectivity and interoperability and the aim of connecting is to increase comfort and efficiency.

Connecting can be achieved through different technology approaches in the categories: progressive energy management, connected safety and security, smart urban systems and advanced e-charging infrastructure. Those will be the main product themes in the “Connecting” category of the exhibition platform.

“The task of future-oriented energy management is not only to serve customers as efficiently, sustainably and securely as possible. In the future, it will also be important to turn customers temporarily into suppliers.

Namely, when electric vehicles are not being used and can make battery capacity available. Smart building automation will then take care of the organisation, which makes the integration of alternative, decentralised energy generation particularly interesting. This includes, for example, the use of photovoltaic technology”, organizers explain.

Another interesting theme during Light + Building 2020 will be connected safety and security. The exhibitors will showcase how intelligent systems, monitoring, access control and data protection systems are essential for contemporary buildings especially when safety and security facilities are interconnected and integrated into all other building services. Electronic safety and security technology will be presented as an integral part of the smart home and smart building.

The exhibitors in the area of smart urban technologies will present solutions for interconnection of the home and working spheres as the smallest and the town as the biggest unit of living and working space, creating the intelligent infrastructure of a district. The product fields in this theme include systems for production facilities, digital charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and dynamic street lighting, as well as connected surveillance technology and intelligent parking systems.

“Electric mobility and urban development are closely interlinked. Private fast-charging units, public induction chargers, billing systems, car sharing and travel planning – only with an intelligent electrical infrastructure can bicycles, cars and commercial transport become part of mobility concepts suitable for mass implementation”, Messe Frankfurt says in a press release, announcing the main topics of the upcoming event.

Pioneering

Under the “Pioneering” theme Light + Building 2020 will present progressive vision of models and systems that are already reality today. Among the included technologies will be predictive maintenance, digital twins and their implementations in building information modelling (BIM).

“Building installations, such as security systems or lighting, are fitted with sensors that continuously measure their performance. Thus, it is possible to make predictions as to when maintenance work must be carried out or a part changed to avoid qualitative or quantitative declines in performance”, the show organizers explain.
They added that all the exhibition themes are linked by a future-oriented interface: BIM.

They described it as the digital twin of the physical building – an interdisciplinary tool for planning, equipping and operating a building digitally and centrally documenting everything. “All building-relevant installations are noted and illustrated three dimensionally in a database that even contains details of the manufacturers, product identification or dimensions – comprehensible for all trades involved”, the press release further announces.

Fascinating

The third leading topic of the upcoming edition of Light + Building will mainly focus on light and luminaire design, simultaneously presenting light as a building network integrated service.

The main subthemes that will be included in this category will be: functional aesthetics, classic authenticity, historical ascendancy and futuristic focus.
“By consciously going without ornamentation in design and focusing on the specific lighting requirements, Light + Building 2020 will give a further boost to a megatrend.

Subtle luminaire designs with variable lighting spectrums for different scenarios – in some cases controlled by the smart building – are being used more and more in the education, work and leisure fields”, the organizers promise. When talking about the future of luminaire design, Light + Building trendsetters describe it as smart, portable, light and sustainable.

Photos: Messe Frankfurt