We need light outdoors at night for safety, security, productivity, and enjoyment. Guidelines and technologies available today can help meet these lighting needs while providing good quality lighting that minimizes light pollution, conserves energy, and enhances community ambience, including the effect on wildlife and our view of the starry night sky.

San Francisco's Orchard Garden Hotel was San Francisco's first hotel to implement a cardkey system to control lights and HVAC systems in guestrooms. Monitored data from four rooms in the hotel showed a reduction in heating and cooling energy of 45% during the peak cooling season. Computer simulations based on monitored occupancy levels in the hotel estimate a savings of 32% of annual heating and cooling costs. Modeled across five different climate zones, the average savings were 26%.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) introduced new Outdoor Lighting Standards in 2005 to conserve energy and reduce electricity peak demand. The Outdoor Lighting Standards regulate lighting power, controls, and allowed lighting fixture types. Illuminated signs are also covered by the Standards.

Many of the lighting upgrades that reduce energy consumption also improve the visual environment and provide maintenance savings. Lighting systems offer extraordinary opportunities for cost-effective energy savings. In addition, many strategies for reducing lighting energy use often can improve the visual environment.

Workers tend to be more productive in a well-lit space that fosters better visual comfort. Lighting controls can increase the value of commercial buildings by making them more comfortable, productive, and energy efficient. These controls work either by turning lights off when they are not needed or by dimming light output so that no more light is produced than necessary.

New high-intensity fluorescents outshine their high-intensity discharge competitors. They are often more efficient and feature lower lumen depreciation rates, better dimming options, instant start-up, and better color rendition.

Traditionally, skylight wells in large, low-rise commercial buildings have been custom designed and site built, an expensive and labor-intensive process. This design brief explores the benefits of a better alternative: splayed modular skylight wells specifically designed for use with suspended ceilings.

The Pharmaceutical Research Institute in La Jolla, California, is a 123,000-square-foot laboratory and office building completed in 1999. Among the energy efficiency measures included in the building are systems for limiting energy waste associated with its 92 fume hoods and its air handling, space conditioning, and lighting systems.

Using fundamental components of the Daylighting Designer's Toolkit, designers can improve the visual environment, create a higher-quality space, and lower energy costs for buildings.