May 12, 2023
A Shining Night: The Boston IES Gala
Above: Steven Rosen, Principal of award-winning firm Available Light, was among hundreds of enthusiastic lighting people at the 2023 IES Illumination Awards Gala in Boston.
Spotlighting the region's exceptional lighting design projects in a high-energy event
On Thursday night, the Boston and Rhode Island Sections of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) hosted its annual gala honoring the Sections’ award winning projects. A total of 23 awards were handed out to honor those who have been recognized for being the most creative with interior and exterior lighting design, as well as lighting controls and energy consumption strategies.
While the rest of the city was enwrapped with a Boston Celtics playoff Game 6, over 400 lighting people from all over the region donned their formal and semiformal attire to attend what turned out to be an energetic night of camaraderie, recognition and celebration.
Taking top honors in the Sections’ Lighthouse Award was the Verizon Digital Media at The Hub on Causeway project. The design team was HLB Lighting Design, Carrie Hawley, Amy Huan, & C. Webster Marsh with ESI Design of NBBJ, Michael Stiller Design & Port Lighting.
The usual high quality architectural photos of the amazing Verizon project were shared on the two large projection screens of the Renaissance Boston Waterfront ballroom, but those in attendance were also treated to a high-quality video that highlighted the dynamic lighting and controls involved in the project.
Gala Chair, Barrett Newell of CannonDesign Lighting Studio, and Gala Co-Chair, Jennifer Pierce – newly minted Principal of Boston Light Source, hosted a well orchestrated event that properly honored the numerous award winning projects and also allowing for other speakers like IES Executive Director Colleen Harper and International Guest, Amardeep Dugar, to share inspiring and compelling messages with the hundreds of lighting people in attendance. IES Past-President, Susanne Seitinger, and soon-to-be President, Billy Tubb, also shared well-received messages from the stage.
Section Service Award recipients were: Rick Paradis of Synergy, Edward Bartholemew of Bartholomew Lighting and Ben Koyle of RAB Lighting.
Below is a recap of the project awards. The Boston Celtics beat the Philadelphia 76ers 95-86 forcing a Mother’s Day Game 7 at the TD Garden, which is the arena highlighted below in the award-winning Hub on Causeway project.
Verizon Digital Media at The Hub on Causeway
Boston, Massachusetts
Design team:
HLB Lighting Design
Carrie Hawley, Amy Huan, & C. Webster Marsh
w/ ESI Design of NBBJ, Michael Stiller Design, & Port Lighting
About the project:
Key areas with greatest potential to deliver unforgettable experiences were designed to captivate people at touchpoints. A series of contrasting lighting/media experiences are strategically designed to showcase Verizon’s innovative brand and encourage engagement. Complex lighting concepts required sophisticated lighting controls solutions - from motion sensing to data capture to color-changing to digital media - across 31 stories.
SECTION LIGHTHOUSE AWARD
SECTION AWARD of MERIT
Illumination Award for Control Innovation
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Outdoor Lighting Design
The Hub on Causeway
Boston, Massachusetts
Design team:
HLB Lighting Design
Carrie Hawley, Michelle Tessier, Barrett Newell, & Carly Gordillo
w/ Quentin Thomas Associates
About the project:
TD Garden, Boston’s legendary sports and concert venue, lacked a physical connection with fans and the surrounding neighborhood. This 1.5 million square foot mixed-use complex, built on the site of the original Boston Garden, created new entertainment, retail, hotel, office, and residential building components designed to engage the community, activate the neighborhood, and celebrate team spirit.
A whole-complex networked control system with DMX capability weaves together the project elements, ensuring continuity. Astronomical timeclocks adjust scenes after events to more sensitively blend into the late-night neighborhood.
SECTION AWARD of MERIT
Illumination Award for Control Innovation
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Outdoor Lighting Design
Mass General Brigham Integrated Care
Salem, NH
Design team:
Arup
Jake Wayne, Selma Benmakhlouf, Ross Kettles, Charlotte Bosworth, Carla Sigillo, & Jenny Tang
About the project:
This new ambulatory care facility provides a new and unique approach to healthcare with a focus on the patient experience through the integration of architecture, lighting design, sustainability, and digital systems.
As this is an outpatient facility, the project included lighting solutions ranging from highly technical spaces including operating suites, exam rooms, advanced imaging, to community facing spaces intended to engage the public in educational and inspiring ways to promote health and wellbeing.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Energy and Environmental Design
Wachenheim Science Center
Williamstown, MA
Design team:
Available Light
Rachel Gibney, Matt Zelkowitz, & Alex Fabozzi
About the project:
Sustainability was a key driver in the design development of this facility. The lighting power density is a minimal 0.51 W/sq.ft. helping elevate the project to LEED Platinum Certified, a level rarely seen for a building of this use-type. Strategically located button stations allow users to recall lighting presets. Additionally, each lighting layer can be separately controlled for flexibility and efficiency. Building-wide sensors, daylight harvesting, and building-wide control scheduling assures adherence to energy saving goals.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
Entertainment Nation, Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Washington, DC
Design team:
Available Light
Derek Barnwell, Hamilton Smith, & Steven Rosen
About the project:
The Entertainment Nation Gallery at Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is an expertly curated history of entertainment in America settling a new contemporary aesthetic for NMAH. The 6,700 sq.ft. exhibit covers many aspects of entertainment from early days of theater, vaudeville, cinema, and sports through today’s entertainment stars, shows, and athletes. Show-stopping artifacts include Prince’s guitar Nispey Hussle’s DJ rig, and Dorothy’s ruby slippers.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory
Laurel, MD
Design team:
CannonDesign Lighting Studio
Haley Darst, Sara Schonour, Raisa Shigol, Victoria Riedinger, Susanna Cerni-Price
About the project:
Bringing together over 500 of the nation’s top scientists, this new 263,000SF interdisciplinary research facility is home to future innovations in science, engineering, and fabrication. The client’s goal of fostering scientific discovery relies on creating spaces that accelerate connection and collaboration, while adapting to continuously changing research needs. The building’s unique form embodies the dynamic physics studied within, encouraging interaction through transparency, openness, and visual connectivity.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
D’Youville College, Health Professions Building
Buffalo, NY
Design team:
CannonDesign Lighting Studio
Coffield King, Sara Schonour, Emily Mockler, & Sam Tankel
About the project:
Nestled in the dense urban fabric of Buffalo’s west side, this 60,000SF Education Hub is an amenity for both its users and community. Showcased in glass, public art and intentionally illuminated street-facing components are situated within its visually permeable exterior. The design team approached the project through lenses of inclusivity, functionality, and sustainability, and relied heavily on daylight design and analysis to optimize the siting and facade of the building. As a result, the building’s atrium creates a core of natural light, with a system of meticulously placed skylights branching out to deliver daylight throughout the building.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
Campus Distillery Experience
Clermont, KY
Design team:
Hartranft Lighting Design
Paula Ziegenbein,Sarah Boyer, & Jessica Krometis
About the project:
Whiskey tourism is big business in Kentucky. Traditional distilleries were industrial workhorses, but racing to lure guests with immersive, modernized environments, Kentucky’s oldest distiller is the latest to debut a visitor experience. Cohesive design across the 400-acre site was inspired by the copper stills, colors of bourbon, charred wood rickhouses, original family homestead and Bluegrass country backdrop.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
Bell Tower Park
Salisbury, NC
Design team:
Hartranft Lighting Design
Paula Ziegenbein & Andrea Hartranft
About the project:
As Salisbury, NC’s most significant downtown green space, Bell Tower Green is the place where the community gathers to celebrate, connect and engage. Once a parking lot with remnants of outbuildings, these three acres are now comprised of outdoor rooms, southern gardens, playful spaces, interactive fountains and event areas.
The historic bell tower, a focal point of the park as well as the community, stands as a beacon at night, with dynamic floodlighting framing its form with white light or color, flexible strips ring the upper turrets to graze each shingled roof and miniature spotlights are positioned behind each turret to light the upper roof and ornamentation.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Outdoor Lighting
Confidential Corporate Fit-out
Cambridge, MA
Design team:
Sladen Feinstein Integrated Lighting
Josh Feinstein, Kranti Sala, & Reiko Kagawa
About the project:
The complex lighting system at this existing office building was carefully crafted to meet the specific needs of this Massachusetts bio-pharmaceutical company. Significant lighting upgrades enhance the building’s efficiency, support LEED Gold certification for its interior refurbishment as well as Fitwel 3 Star-certification for its emphasis on occupant well-being with an eye toward net-zero operations before 2040.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
The Huntington Theatre
Boston, Massachusetts
Design team:
Sladen Feinstein Integrated Lighting
Ben Strauss & Jeffrey Sladen
About the project:
The interior of this Boston landmark has been restored and modernized re-establishing it as a first-rate performance venue. Critical upgrades were made to the 800-seat theatre as well as support spaces, dressing/ rehearsal rooms and a large events space. Bringing back the sparkle with modernized lighting was one of the major goals for the first phase of this two-phased project.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
Boston Children’s Hospital Brookline
Boston, Massachusetts
Design team:
Lam Partners
Sarah Fisher, Justin Brown, Brittany Lynch, & Srushti Totadri
About the project:
Boston Children’s Brookline provides a central location of specialized primary care services for patients with neurodevelopmental and behavioral health conditions. Given the special needs of the patient group, it was important to understand visual or environmental triggers, while attending to the staff’s requirements as well, including those in the research and laboratory facilities.
The project encompassed 6 stories of fit-out space, with a budget of $46,000,000, and a lighting budget of approximately $8 per square foot.
The project is certified Silver ID+C, LEED v4, with an overall lighting power density of .75 watts/square foot.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Energy and Environmental Lighting Design
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
Albert Einstein Education & Research Center
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Design team:
Lam Partners
Paul Zaferiou, Matt Latchford, Dan Weissman, Carle Wille
About the project:
Lighting concepts link the outward-facing classrooms, labs, and support spaces with inward-facing atrium spaces, creating a seamless luminous experience. Integrated strategies focus on lighting architectural surfaces and landscape features to reenforce the overall project vision of an “oasis for learning”.
Two challenges emerged. First, due to budget constraints, virtually all fixtures had to be manufactured in Brazil. Working with local manufacturers, extensive modifications and mock-ups were coordinated to achieve batwing uplight distribution and low brightness downlight optics.
SECTION AWARD
Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design
HONORABLE MENTION SECTION AWARDS
Aqua-Leisure Headquarters
Stoughton, MA
BKA Architects, Inc.
Mindy Kaplan & David Seibert
Boston Arts Academy
Boston, MA
Borealis Lighting Studio of BR+A
Enrique Rojas & Dan Coran
University at Buffalo, One World Café
Buffalo, NY
CannonDesign Lighting Studio
Kate St. Laurent, Raisa Shigol, & Susanna Cerni-Price
Microsoft Reston
Reston, VA
HLB Lighting Design
Robyn Goldstein, Haley Darst, Stefano Amabile, Stella Murray, & Ethan Neslund
Medford Public Library
Medford, MA
HLB Lighting Design
Carrie Hawley, Haley Darst, & Stefano Amabile
High Street Place
Boston, MA
Lam Partners
Keith Yancey, Lisa Wong, & Penn Whitlow
Restoration of “Blue Sky on the Red Line”
Cambridge, MA
WSP USA
Jeffrey T. Berg, John E. Trainor, David M. Moeller, & Joshua Brodin
