The World’s Largest Chandelier has LED Lights!
The biggest chandelier in the world might also be the greenest! In Doha, Qatar, a Hitmi Property development has a record-breaking 20-ton LED light installation snaking through its atrium. The installation, called Reflective Flow, was designed by Beau McClellan. It uses 2500 individually hand-ground optical crystals, each shrouded by high-quality pieces of concave glass and covered with a unique reflective coating. It also uses around 55,000 LED lights, all of which are controlled by a customized, state-of-the-art control system. The LED light on each crystal can be controlled individually, allowing the maximum amount of colour and display variation so that constantly and organically transforms and evolves in colour, shape and light. 
The most fantastic part of this piece is that energy-efficiency factored into the decision to go with LED lights. Says McClellan, “I believe that every designer needs to be aware of the ecological impact of their work. We can all make a difference by using new technology and with LEDs; you can still have all the glamour of designer lighting but use very little energy.” In an interview with Middle East Interiors about Reflective Flow, McClellan continues, “After realising the proportions we would have to use, the ecological impact was of a great concern to me. LED lighting for me is the true future of lighting. Manufacturing LED is non-toxic, there are huge reductions in the energy that is required to power them and they have an extremely long life. Therefore there is less packaging, less waste products, also the maintenance costs are low. But I am sure your readers already know the benefits of LED lights.”
“But for this project, I wanted to reduce the energy consumption to even lower than the normal. We did this by using hand-ground optical crystal, to magnify the light that was produced by the LEDs. The crystal also helps to diffuse the colour and spread the light. It is hard for me to tell you exactly what the cost in terms of the energy consumed. But what I can tell you is that if we turn on the chandelier on full white, which is the most energy consuming colour, as it takes all the other colours to produce it, it would be similar as turning on one hundred 60 W light bulbs, which considering its size, it is an extremely low energy consumption.”
Hooray for art AND environmental awareness!
