Litepanels Lights the Pentagon Briefing Room
The Pentagon; the massive 5 sided building that houses the United States Defense Department, was built to protect the nation. When ground was broken for construction in 1941, television was hardly a consideration.
When a jetliner flew into one side of the building during the 9-11 attack, the Pentagon was already under renovation. And a year ago, it was time for the Defense Department Briefing Room to get a workover, including new lighting supplied by LED (light emitting diode) lighting pioneer; Litepanels.
"They were very limited by ceiling height" said Litepanels co-founder Kevin Baxter. "The ceilings are approximately nine feet, so whatever lighting fixtures they were going to use had to be compact and tucked right up to the ciling surface."
The Litepanels 1x1 5600 K light fixtures were chosen for the job. They are compact, measuring just 1 foot by 1 foot square, and because they generate practically no heat and are cool to the touch they can be fastened in close proximity to the ceiling without danger of fire or other damage.
Even through the Briefing Room section of the building had been renovated, it still had a centralized heating and air conditioning system that can't be focused to pull heat out of that particulr room. This made the lack of heat gernration from the Litepanels fixtures even more of a benefit.
The timing of the renovation and re-lighting of the briefing room also coincided with the press corps' migration to high-definition cameras. The HD-friendly nature of the Litepanels fixtures was a perfect solution to providing compimentary light for today's higher-resolution, "flaw-enhancing" cameras.
As with the White House Briefing Room, which was also re-lit with Litepanels fixtures, one of the principal reasons that 5600 K fixtures were chosen is because the color temperature closely matches the large LCD monitors that are on stands near the podium. All of the Litepanels fixtures in the room are controlled via DMX.
