Bright ideas: IESNY names eight Lumen Awards winners.

The Illuminating Engineering Society New York Section (IESNY) announced the recipients of the 2006 Lumen Awards, for excellence, professionalism, ingenuity and originality in lighting design. The awards will be presented at the Lumen Gala on June 14 in New York City.

This year, awards will be presented in two categories: The Lumen Citation, a special recognition for an art installation, technical detail, portion of a single project, temporary installation or other work; and the Lumen Award of Merit, in recognition of a permanent architectural application.

The Porter House, a residential project in Manhattan designed by SHoP Architects and Dodger Stages (now known as New World Stages), an underground theatre complex in Manhattan designed collaboratively by lighting designer Sachs Morgan Studio, set designer Klara Zieglerova, and Beyer Blinder Belle, architects, will receive the Lumen Citations.

Eight projects and their design teams will receive a Lumen Award of Merit. The Steven Holl Architects designed, Central Wing at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, with lighting by Arc Light Design and Rogers Marvel as architect of record, will receive a Lumen Award of Merit with Distinction for Civic Service. The Robin Hood Library Initiative at P.S. 32 in the Bronx, lighting designed by Renfro Design Group for Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects will receive the same honor. Brandston Partnership's lighting design for Terminal 1 at the SOM designed Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto; Cosentini Lighting Design's 111 South Wacker Drive office tower in Chicago; Scott Kester's lighting design for the Frisson, a new restaurant in San Francisco; Tillotson Design Associates lighting design for Mixed Greens Gallery in Manhattan, designed by Leven Betts; Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design's National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC; Tanteri + Associates lighting design for Peter Marino + Associates Chanel Ginza in Tokyo, will all receive Lumen Awards of Merit.

"The jury, and Lumen Award Committee Chairs Carrie Knowlton and Shoshanna Segal, saw entries that represented classic design and entries with technically innovative approaches to solving visual challenges, said Randy Sabedra, president of the IESNY. Most notably, we also saw several projects that incorporated a sense of civic and social responsibility into the realm of design."

The Lumen Awards program is not a competition per se, as each project submitted is evaluated on its own merit. Mustafa Abadan, design partner, SOM; Elizabeth Donoff, senior editor, Architectural Lighting; Nelson Jenkins, architect and lighting designer, principal, Lumen Architecture; Thomas Thompson, lighting designer, partner, Brandston Partnership, Dan Jacoby, architect, TPG Architecture, Addison Kelly, lighting designer, principal US Lighting Consultants, comprised this year's jury and reviewed the 79 projects that were submitted. Though the jury awarded Citations and Merits, they did not award a Lumen Award of Excellence or a Feltman Award for a retail merchandise lighting this year.

"The Lumen Gala is our most celebrated event of the year, continued Sabedra. "Receiving a Lumen Award has become a highly regarded honor in the lighting industry, especially in a section, like New York, that has so many talented designers."