Prism Glass Windows Making a Comeback

Steve Daley writes "Prism window glass like Luxfer was big back in the 19th century, but now it seems to be making a high-tech comeback in Japan, where several companies are commercializing similar technology that gets enough natural light into factories and offices to do away with electric lighting. It's easy on the pocket and the planet."

Comments

Neat, it is very much like...

[clonan]

A Window!

Re:Neat, it is very much like...

[synthparadox]

Yes if windows could be a glass dome on the roof that captured light and distributed it to many rooms on many floors separated by a novel invention, walls --or even better, ceilings.

Re:Neat, it is very much like...

[corsec67]

It really looks like a light tube with a fancy projector on the end.

Actually, it does sound like the new thing is that projector at the end of the light tube, which creates a natural window appearance on an interior wall.

Re:Neat, it is very much like...

[peacefinder]

The article appears to describe two different products, a "light tube" similar to a Solatube and also a prism-glass window. I believe it's the prism window pictured.

It's a good idea, and a pity that it's so expensive. Hopefully the cost will come down again in time.

Bonus

[steveo777]

This should cut back significantly on the amount of vampire activity in dark, corporate areas.

Re:Slightly better than a window, for 10x the pric

[moderatorrater]

There are a lot of advantages of natural light over fluorescent in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction. I don't know if you're talking $10,000 worth of advantage, but it is a factor.

Re:Slightly better than a window, for 10x the pric

[chinakow]

Lucky for us companies tend to want to have the lights on all the time so it is not a big deal. also, HP shut off half the lights in one if its call centers for 8 hours during the dead of night to saver money. The result, multiple thousand dollar savings PER MONTH. So $5k will pay off quickly in the summer for companies using these.

Wow!

[Bogtha]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a world first! A Slashdot post that praises windows!

The dollar is weak and the quality is different.

[arete]

It's not a fair comparison if the quality of the light is important to you.

The light is way better than an el cheapo flourescent, especially if color matters to you at all. Or if spraying mercury in the room when the bulb breaks does. So plenty of people might be willing to take the penalty.

Obviously that depends somewhat on how sunny your locale is, though.

150 year old house

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee... I knew I loved this old house for some reason :) lots of glass windows and tall ceilings. No Luxfer prisms, but lots of stained glass and multiple large windows per room. Effectively we use almost no artificial light during daylight hours (except in the kitchen - tacked onto the house in 1910 or so). Similarly, we don't need air conditioning well into late June here in Illinois due to the way the house was built (and creative use of basement and attic doors).

Re:150 year old house

[cowscows]

I design buildings for a living, and am involved in a lot of projects that consider sustainable design important. One of the most interesting things about sustainable design as it's evolving right now is how many of its basic principles are really just rediscovering all the techniques that were used for hundreds (or even thousands) of years before air conditioning was invented. Old houses have plenty to teach us.

One of the best ways to design a house for natural lighting is to pretend that youo won't have any artificial lighting. It's a limitation that architects spend centuries finding solutions to. There are plenty of good answers out there. New technology and new materials are helping to create new answers, but it doesn't have to be anything crazy or even innovative. The same thing goes with heating/cooling strategies, there's a bazillion little design "tricks of the trade" that are incredibly straight-forward and easy. You don't need state-of-the-art materials, you don't need computer design tools, you don't need to be a highly educated architect. People were finding solutions to these problems hundreds of years ago when all they had to build out of was mud bricks.

The important part is how we can use technology to augment those techniques (things like low-e glass), or how we integrate those techniques with newer technologies (A/C, solar panels, etc.)

Not a chance.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Where I work, those effing Vampires would just use SPF 50 and make some lowpaid grunt bring the 55 gallon drum of it up the stairs to their office.

This has been around for years

[marcus]

http://www.solatube.com/

So has the prism glass.

Nothing new here, move along...

Re:This has been around for years

[Garridan]

Nothing new here, move along... ... hence the title: "Prism Glass Windows Making a Comeback"