San Diego, August 3, 2020 - Nautilus Entertainment Design (NED) is pleased to announce that the Architect of the Capitol has retained them for a redesign of the architectural lighting of the House of Representatives Chamber in the U.S. Capitol. This follows the successful completion of NED’s relighting of the Senate Chamber, which was completed last year.
Nautilus President and Principal Consultant Jim Tetlow said, “This project actually started 23 years ago with a feasibility study to improve the broadcast lighting in the Senate Chamber. Because both the House and Senate Chambers are working environments, glare from the broadcast lighting was a major problem. From the beginning, I argued that the best way to reduce the intensity of the broadcast lighting, and increase comfort was to increase the ambient architectural lighting, primarily with reflected light from the large oculus cove in the ceiling. The solution worked and the broadcast lighting is now operating at 25-30 percent lower levels than before. The previous lighting installation in the Senate Chamber (and current installation in the House Chamber) date from the 1950 renovation and were 100% incandescent. By converting to an all LED solution, we were able to reduce the energy consumption by 80% and substantially increase the working light levels. We plan on applying the same principals to the redesign of the architectural lighting in the House of Representatives.”
NED Lighting Designer, Kurt Doemelt created all the 3-D photometric modeling for the Senate Chamber and will also be involved with the House Chamber modeling. NED is also providing architectural and broadcast lighting designs for several House of Representatives’ Hearing Rooms on Capitol Hill. As he has for the previous five Presidential election cycles, Jim Tetlow will serve as lighting consultant for all four of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates this fall.