The architecture of light: architectural lighting design concepts and techniques. A textbook of procedures and practices for the architect, interior designer and lighting designer pdfdrive com

THE BASIC LUMINAIRE FAMILIES
The 4-inch Aperture Recessed Downlight
The recessed downlight is, no doubt, one of the darlings of the architectural lighting world. This little device shows up as nothing more than a hole in the ceiling and casts fairly directed light onto a surface below. The small version of a downlight will usually hold an MR-16 low-voltage lamp or a line-voltage PAR- 20 lamp. There are even 4” aperture downlights that hold compact fluorescent lamps, ceramic metal halide (CMH) lamps and of course LED’s. This small aperture downlight will generally be useful in ceilings up to 9’-0” high. Be warned, however, that by their very nature, downlights are fairly restrictive.
Because they place light directly down, they do not allow for precise aiming
onto vertical surfaces or specific objects. For this reason, many designers eschew the “fixed aim” downlight altogether and instead use recessed adjustable accent
luminaires (See following pages) Some commonly-specified 4” aperture downlights are made by Lightolier, Prescolite, Leucos, Deltalight, Prima, Capri and Juno. Below are cut sheets and images of this type of luminaire.
Figure 22.1.1
4” aperture halogen downlight from Deltalight.
Figure 22.1.2
4” aperture LED downlight from Erco.
Figure 22.1.3
4” aperture halogen downlight from Philips Lightolier.
Figure 22.1.4 An application featuring 4” aperture downlights.
The 6-inch Aperture Recessed Downlight
The 6 inch downlight behaves in the same way as its smaller cousin, but it generally contains a larger lamp for more robust effects. If you are going to use a
6” aperture luminaire, make sure you are getting enough light to justify the larger aperture. Look for a 90W-150W PAR38 halogen lamp, 70W-150W T6 ceramic metal halide lamp, or 2500-lumen LED module. Generally, these larger downlights are a utilitarian way to get light onto the horizontal plane from ceilings with ranging from 10’-0” to 30’-0” in height.