Olympic Village & Southeast False Creek Updates Discussion

[SpongeG]

its for the gold medal game they are hoping it will freeze over

[jlousa]

Believe thats the future site of WCFC.

[Locked In]

Some pretty serious fencing has gone in around the village:









(my photos, taken today)

[officedweller]

The fingernails on the energy plant stacks look like they're small spotlights shining onto mesh screens, rather than collars around the stacks that light up - a bit disapointing.
Haven't seen them lit up yet.

******
Driving across Cambie Bridge - you can see a series of blue lines - balconies lit up - at the village.
Are those permanent or just for Xmas?

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Driving across Cambie Bridge - you can see a series of blue lines - balconies lit up - at the village.
Are those permanent or just for Xmas?

I think they are permanent.


Taken by SFUVancouver, December 7th, 2009



Taken by SFUVancouver, December 7th, 2009

I don't like the choice of blue for those light strips. I've never been a big fan of blue LEDs in general.

[touraccuracy]

they look good to me, at least in the photos. there are always complaints here about not enough lighting...

[Metro-One]

I like them! Nice to see some lighting effects as part of this project.

[WarrenC12]

So much for energy efficient...

I wonder if the solar panels even provide enough power for those lights.

[vanman]

^They're LEDs.

Fom Wikipedia

Sustainable lighting

Efficient lighting is needed for sustainable architecture. A 13 watt LED lamp produces 450 to 650 lumens [74]. which is equivalent to a standard 40 watt incandescent bulb [75]. A standard 40 W incandescent bulb has an expected lifespan of 1,000 hours while an LED can continue to operate with reduced efficiency for more than 50,000 hours, 50 times longer than the incandescent bulb.

Environmentally friendly options

A single kilowatt-hour of electricity will generate 1.34 pounds (610 g) of CO2 emissions.[76] Assuming the average light bulb is on for 10 hours a day, a single 40-watt incandescent bulb will generate 196 pounds (89 kg) of CO2 every year. The 13-watt LED equivalent will only be responsible for 63 pounds (29 kg) of CO2 over the same time span. A building’s carbon footprint from lighting can be reduced by 68% by exchanging all incandescent bulbs for new LEDs.

LEDs are also non-toxic unlike the more popular energy efficient bulb option: the compact florescent a.k.a. CFL which contains traces of harmful mercury. While the amount of mercury in a CFL is small, introducing less into the environment is preferable.

Economically sustainable

LED light bulbs could be a cost effective option for lighting a home or office space because of their very long lifetimes. Consumer use of LEDs as a replacement for conventional lighting system is currently hampered by the high cost and low efficiency of available products. 2009 DOE testing results showed an average efficacy of 35 lm/W, below that of typical CFLs, and as low as 9 lm/W, worse than standard incandescents.[74] The high initial cost of the commercial LED bulb is due to the expensive sapphire substrate which is key to the production process. The sapphire apparatus must be coupled with a mirror-like collector to reflect light that would otherwise be wasted.

In 2008, a materials science research team at Purdue University succeeded in producing LED bulbs with a substitute for the sapphire components.[77]. The team used metal-coated silicon wafers with a built-in reflective layer of zirconium nitride to lessen the overall production cost of the LED. They predict that within a few years, LEDs produced with their revolutionary, new technique will be competitively priced with CFLs. The less expensive LED would not only be the best energy saver, but also a very economical bulb.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by vanman

^They're LEDs.

Fom Wikipedia

I know. But permanent lighting of that level can still be considered a waste. For the record I don't mind the lights, but it's funny that they are going to extreme lengths to be Platinum LEED, then having stuff like this, even if it takes less energy than normal.

[Metro-One]

Well going green doesn't have to mean going dull...which is what I always fear vancouver will choose.

More effective green measures are incorporating solar, wind and thermal power into a building, using grey water systems, good insulation, properly placed windows, etc...

An area having some lighting effects, especially when using energy efficient bulbs, is good IMO. For me it makes an area feel safer then the dark look, especially in our rainy, dark city (for half the year).

I always think that if the city really wants to be green it needs to put far better sewage treatment in place. That should be one of our first "green" targets.

And maybe cracking down on all the grow-ops and drug labs in the city that use very large amounts of energy...illegally as well. I wonder what the annual consumption of electricity is in our area for grow-ops.

[AlexYVR]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I know. But permanent lighting of that level can still be considered a waste. For the record I don't mind the lights, but it's funny that they are going to extreme lengths to be Platinum LEED, then having stuff like this, even if it takes less energy than normal.

It does lose them LEED points to have exposed lighting like that, but Metro-One is right; you have to strike a balance between liveability (and aesthetics) and sustainability, I suppose.

[Smooth]

I believe it's just the community centre that was going for LEED Platinum. I think the other buildings were going for lower LEED levels.

I don't mind the the lights. They line up well with the bend in West 2nd Ave.

[WarrenC12]

Hey I like it too, just playing devil's advocate.

[djh]

I love blue LED lights - they're all the rage at the moment (computers, appliances, everywhere).

But I wonder if that might be exactly the problem in say 10 years time - that the blue LED light craze will have passed and they will look really dated on the buildings. We might look at the blue LED lights in 10 years and say "Ugh, that building looks so 2000s"), the same way we might look at certan buildings in the west end and say they looks so 70s, if you see what I mean.

[Canadian Mind]

well, Neon came out how many dozen years ago and it is still popular?

Led lights will never go out of fashion. Might have to change the colour of bulbs 10 years down the road, but who says you can't simply swap out the lights when you become tired of the blue?

[officedweller]

Thanks for the pics!
I was surprsied because there'll be condos across the street staring into them in the future.

[SpongeG]

they don't seem any worse than the street lights - the street lights seem to give off more light in those pics

[djh]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

well, Neon came out how many dozen years ago and it is still popular?

Actually, neon *did* go out of fashion for a long time. That's why the city is now running schemes to encourage neon back on to certain streets. Granville Street for example. So that exactly proves my point - certain things go out of fashion and we associate them with a bygone age.

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Led lights will never go out of fashion. Might have to change the colour of bulbs 10 years down the road, but who says you can't simply swap out the lights when you become tired of the blue?

I specifically talked about *blue* LED lights going out of fashion. I don't think one can realistically make a statement like something will "never" go out of fashion. And what if some time down the road they discover some major problem with that technology (remember asbestos? Remember CFLs were supposed to save the world until they got replaced by LEDs? And so on)

[squeezied]

nothing new, but interesting nevertheless

• Video Link
Columnist Daphne Bramham discusses her first impressions of the Olympic Village with editor Fazil Mihlar.