The Smart Highways project by Studio Roosegaarde proposes five energy-efficient concepts that will be tested on a stretch of highway in the Brabant province of the Netherlands from the middle of this year.

The first of the concepts developed by studio head Daan Roosegaarde and infrastructure firm Heijmans is a glow-in-the-dark road that uses photo-luminescent paint to mark out traffic lanes. The paint absorbs energy from sunlight during the day the lights the road at night for up to 10 hours.

Temperature-responsive road paint would show images of snowflakes when the temperature drops below zero, warning drivers to take care on icy roads.

There are two ideas for roadside lighting: interactive street lamps that come on as vehicles approach then dim as they pass by, thereby saving energy when there is no traffic, and "wind lights" that use energy generated by pinwheels as drafts of air from passing vehicles cause them to spin round.

Finally, an induction priority lane would incorporate induction coils under the tarmac to recharge electric cars as they drive.

Roosegaarde presented the Smart Highways concept at the Design Indaba conference in South Africa earlier this month, where he received a standing ovation from rapt guests – see more from Design Indaba as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour.

Last year the studio built a dome of metallic flowers that appear to come to life as they sense the presence of visitors, while their earlier projects include a dress that becomes see-through when the wearer gets excited or embarrassed – see all design by Studio Roosegaarde.

Other street lighting we've reported on includes Ross Lovegrove's solar-powered lights shaped like trees and a sharply faceted LED street lamp – see all street lighting.

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Studio Roosegaarde appeared first on Dezeen.

The Christmas lights were designed by Teresa Sapey for Calle Serrano, an upmarket shopping street in the Spanish capital.

Every year, Madrid's city council asks a designer or architect to create festive street lighting.

Sapey used energy efficient LEDs to form unique combinations of pattern and colour in each circle.

She founded her architecture studio in Madrid in 1990.

We previously featured Christmas lights in the shape of stars and dominoes that were installed across Lisbon last year.

We've also reported on another outdoor lighting project in Madrid – an outbreak of illuminated silicone nipples stuck onto statues by guerrilla lighting designers Luzinterruptus.

See all our stories about Christmas »
See all our stories about lighting »
See all our stories about Madrid »

Here's some more information from the designer:

Every single year, Madrid council asks some of the most important designers, architects or courtiers to make designs for Madrid’s streets. Teresa Sapey was asked to conceive Serrano Street’s Christmas lighting. Placed in one of the most luxurious neighbourhoods in Madrid, Serrano Street is well known for the high fashion designer’s shops.

It seemed to be a very difficult task, but Teresa thought this was a good chance to lighten up the street using very colourful and geometric designs. Her aim was to turn the grey and cold Serrano into a warm place, filled with colour.

Her designs have a countless amount of colours combined with circle shapes. Each one is different from the others, forming a sequence of drawings that can be seen from both sides.

This design concerns as well environmental conservation and ecology. Made by using LED technology, it is also sustainable and efficient, requiring less power and producing low energy consumption.

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by Teresa Sapey appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Wire: Spanish lighting brand Santa & Cole has launched a lawsuit accusing the state of Qatar of copying street lighting devised for Barcelona by Catalan designer Beth Galí in 1996.

920 lights have been installed by the Ashghal public authority along Al Waab Street in Doha (top and above), which Santa & Cole claim are counterfeits of their Latina street lamps designed by Galí (below). They also claim the designs incude low-quality light sources that dazzle drivers and thin steel that represents a structural safety hazard.

Read more on the campaign website, Facebook page or Twitter.

See more stories about street lighting on Dezeen »

Here are some more details from Santa & Cole:

Lawsuit against Qatar due to counterfeiting 1,000 streetlamps and threatening the intellectual property of their designer

The public company Ashghal from Qatar forged the "Latina" streetlamp, designed by the architect Beth Galí, and manufactured and marketed by the company Santa & Cole. Nearly 1,000 forged units were installed on Al Waab Street, the main street in Doha.

Beth Galí has lodged a lawsuit in the Courts of Barcelona to report the case, in which she expressed her "full confidence in justice to resolve a large-scale forgery case that is threatening the creativity of professionals and European companies".

BCD and Santa & Cole, as well as several personalities working in architecture and design in Barcelona, went to the courts to show their support and to make the facts public.

Javier Nieto, Chairman of Santa & Cole: "It is unbelievable that a country such as Qatar could commit such a serious case of forgery"
Pau Herrera, Chairman of BCD: "Protecting design as a factor of innovation is essential to create economic and social value in Europe"

One of the biggest cases of public counterfeiting in the history of Design

The architect Beth Galí, the Chairman of Santa & Cole, Javier Nieto Santa, and the Chairman of BCD (Barcelona Design Centre), Pau Herrera, invited the media to Courts of Law in Barcelona to publicly announce the large-scale forgery committed by Qatar.

The meeting, carried out at the doors of the Courts of Law in Barcelona, was held due to the lawsuit for pain and suffering lodged on June 29 by Beth Galí against Qatar, which forged the "Latina" streetlamp via the public company Ashghal in 2006, designed by her and manufactured and marketed by the company Santa & Cole.

This case of large-scale forgery is especially relevant as the offender is a sovereign state, in addition to the case being particularly large and the development of events.
The crime committed by Qatar can be seen along the 10 kilometres of Al Waab Street, the main street in the capital of Qatar, Doha, where the public company Ashghal installed approximately 900 forgeries of the "Latina" streetlamp.

Although the case is being made public now, the facts go back to April 2005, when Ashghal requested Santa & Cole to complete an entire lighting project for Al Waab Street for the 14th Asian Games (Doha, 2006). After the Qatari authorities chose the "Latina" streetlamp, which was adapted beforehand to meet the needs of the project, and having submitted five different projects with models and technical specifications, Ashghal requested a local company to make nearly 1,000 copies of the "Latina" streetlamp in 2006.

After six years of trying to reach an amicable agreement, and after the Qatari government refused the arbitration of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the case is now in the hands of the Courts of Barcelona and one of the largest acts of piracy in the history of design committed by a sovereign state is now being made public.

In this context, the claimant, Beth Galí, expressed her "full confidence in the Spanish legal system to resolve a blatant case of large-scale forgery" at the courts.
Supporting the business sector and design BCD (Barcelona Design Centre) and Santa & Cole, as well as other personalities working in the design and architecture sector in Barcelona, were with Beth Galí during the submission of the first lawsuit to show their support and to make the facts public.

Javier Nieto Santa, the Chairman of Santa & Cole, stated to the media that the "Latina" streetlamp case perplexed him, ensuring that "it is unbelievable that Qatar, a sovereign nation and member of the WIPO and the WTO, bound by the Paris Convention and the TRIPS Agreement, could commit such a large case of forgery, which undoubtedly shows a complete disregard for copyright".

In this regard, Pau Herrera, Chairman of BCD, ensured that "protecting design as a factor of innovation is essential to create economic and social value, and represents one of the most important assets of professionals and European companies". Herrera added that cases such as this one "do not only damage our business, but also the city model Barcelona wants to project".

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1000 street lamps" appeared first on Dezeen.

Lovegrove has been working on the project with Sharp Solar and Italian lighting brand Artemide for the past few years and installing the lights in cities around the world. Their next project will see 30 Solar Trees placed around the Summer Palace in Beijing.

Read more about the design in our earlier story.

Watch our earlier movie round-up of Clerkenwell Design Week 2012 here, and see all our stories from the event here.

See all our stories about Ross Lovegrove »
See all our stories about Clerkenwell Design Week 2012 »
See all our stories about Artemide »

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at Clerkenwell Design Week appeared first on Dezeen.

Photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro has sent us these photographs documenting the vernacular street-lighting of different cities around the world. 

In these images, light bulbs and lamp posts become the subject matter rather than the surrounding context.

The collection varies from fluorescent lighting along a motorway to a simple light bulb attached to a decaying piece of wood.

He highlights the smaller spaces within a city's framework, from the outskirts to the city centre.

More photography stories on Dezeen.

Here's a description of the project from the photographer:

"lights in the city" is a collection of images of the different street lighting devises that I have found while walking in different cities around the globe.

They were taken in a variety of urban contexts during these past years.

Sometimes, I chose to photograph light posts in marginal areas of the new cities in Asia or Northern Africa.

In other occasions I identified isolated light posts in the central metropolitan areas of cities such as London.

Finally, in the more unexpected locations as for example in Cairo’s City of the Dead I found the most basic and improvised forms of lighting where a light bulb is hanging from a wire inserted on a piece of wood.

It never came to my mind to conduct a work on this subject.

Only when I saw that in all my works their geometrical shapes or the vertical posts where present that’s when I realized that I could create a story.

With this in mind I selected images where the light bulbs and light posts were the main subjects or at least had a strong compositional value during the creative process.

Light devices are created to carry out a specific function.  They are intended to provide light to the city.  However, due to its fragile nature they do not last long in time.

When photographing them these ephemeral electric devises made me ponder that they could potentially provide a new angle in how we see the city by generating intimate and reflective moments about our human condition.

With "Lights of the city" I want to create a point once more on the relation that exists  between the city and the humans which inhabit them.

This work was presented on a screen at El Aperitivo 04 celebrated on the 30th of June 2010 in la Fabrica (Madrid) under the subject "Luz" and as an homage to László Moholy- Nagy

The images belong to Cairo, Aswan, Ras Sudr, Beirut, Abu Dhabi, London, Santiago de Chile, Fukuoka, Hong-Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Bloemfontein

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