The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD has launched its 20th annual International Lighting Design Awards competition featuring a revised and refocused format. The awards program continues its mission to acknowledge superior architectural lighting design. New to the process is its category focus: entries are to be submitted into one of seven categories, and projects will be judged and recognized within those categories with Awards of Excellence, Awards of Merit and Special Citations. The project accumulating the highest point score among all the categories earns the new IALD Radiance Award for Excellence in Lighting Design.
The seven new judging categories into which entrants submit their projects are:
· Corporate
· Hospitality
· Residential
· Academic/Institutional
· Retail/Entertainment
· Monumental Structures/Public Spaces
· Site/Façade
Projects within a category will be considered on their own merit and not judged against other categories. “This is a big and important change for the awards program – it has been talked about for quite a while,” explains Al Borden, IALD marketing director and president of The Lighting Practice in Philadelphia. “It really levels the playing ground for lighting designers who do exemplary work but aren’t always recognized in competitions because of big-budget, high-visibility projects that can be overwhelming in relation to the majority of work out there.”
Also new to this year’s IALD awards call for entries is the format in which submissions are made. In a nod to technology, projects will need to be submitted digitally in high-resolution, jpeg images. Specific requirements are posted on the IALD website at [email protected] and they can be requested via phone at +1.312.527.3677 and via facsimile at +1.312.527.3680.
The criteria judges will use when reviewing submissions is posted on the IALD website.
The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2003. Project entries that include digitally enhanced or retouched images will be disqualified.