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Read ArticleThe Bridge to European Lighting – Inter-Lux
Great lighting design happens everyday all over the world, and European manufacturers have long been leaders in making the kind of tools lighting designers love to use. Inter-lux was found to be the bridge between select European manufacturers and the North American market. The leaders of Inter-lux work with their partner factories to identify products most needed in North America and then proceed develop roadmaps to making the products viable here. That includes:
- UL Listing the factories for direct import to the United States.
- UL testing individual products.
- Assembling products stateside when practical.
More Than An Importer
Identifying products that would be valuable to the US market and then getting them here would be valuable enough, but the leadership on Inter-lux is made up of lighting people, nowhere is that more clear than in the maturation of the brand Whitegoods. Whitegoods started as an imported brand through Inter-lux, but over time it became clear that design community wanted a line of simple-to-specify and install downlights and linear product that integrated seamlessly into the architecture.
What might be the best example of that is the P20 series. The P20 is a 20mm linear strip of light. This simple tool can do so many things when integrated into the right mounting apparatus that it becomes a universal tool for lighting designers and architects.
From simple recessing and surface mounting to under-cabinet and pendant applications, the P20 can even integrated into the frames of acoustical tile ceilings. But that’s not the end of what Inter-lux has done with the P20.
These various cove integrations create an amazing pallet of options for lighting designers and architects to integrate beautiful light into the architecture seamlessly. This was beautifully illustrated at the Inter-lux training center with this display. You can see accent, ambient light, wall washing and soft coves all created below.
Each of the Whitegoods extrusions you see in the above display was designed for optimal light output as well as obscuring the source in cove applications. But it was also thought through from the perspective of contractor installation – with knife guides for easy mudding in place and “throw-away” lenses for the mudding and painting process. The end result is beautiful architectural details every time. One last thing about the P20 series there are so many ways to use it, that Inter-lux as developed a design guide for the P20 to give you some ideas of how to lay it out and what kind of sight lights and illuminance will be created.
ALM / Filix / Linea Light / Sattler and Vice
There are five other brands that make up the Inter-lux family. I could write about each of them at length, but in the interest of brevity, I want to bring it around to some of the things we got to play with in person at the training center.
Sattler prides itself on the creation of incredible shapes with incredible attention to detail and hand craftsmanship. This is all exhibited in these videos.
This visit let me get to know the newest Sattler family of products – Avveni. Avenni is both a beautiful pendant system and a real performance lighting tool. Each head employs a magnetic ball socket, making them infinitely aimable. The heads are also compatible with Soraa’s interchangeable lenses making each head capable of projecting beams of 9, 25, 36 and 60 degrees.
There are so many products to touch on, Linea Light for instance boasts a 900 page catalog and is worthy of it’s own post. Before I wrap this up, I thought I’d touch on the outdoor offerings from Filix and Vice.
Filix offers a variety of exterior rated fixtures with terrific performance. Vice offers form factors with incredible glare control for both the interior and the exterior. The combination makes for a tool box of options to get light where you want it with superior optics and performance.
Getting to know the Inter-lux Offering
There’s no substitute for visiting the Maryland facility. There you can see the products installed and demonstrated. But in the meantime, you an always reach out to us at SDA for samples to review and in-office demonstrations. The Inter-lux website has been extensively updated with application photos, cut sheets and application guides. It’s also a good place to start.
