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Bahrain’s night-time skyline has taken on a much more dazzling appearance in recent years, with the trend set to continue as prominent buildings line up to have their walls and frontages illuminated in sparkling LED (Light Emitting Diode) decorations.
Foremost among these is Seef Mall, which recently published an ‘expression of interest’ advertisement, calling out for ‘reputed LED lighting contractors for the supply and installation of colour-changing programmable LED façade lighting’.
Robert Addison, general manager of Seef Properties, expressed his desire to liven up the popular retail park at night, which receives more than 200,000 visitors per week in its prominent location halfway between the causeway and the airport.
He said: “We’ve been looking at doing something to the building for a couple of years, as we felt it was time to upgrade it as part of our continued efforts to improve the Seef Mall infrastructure.
“The building is an iconic part of Bahrain, but it’s not as architecturally-appealing as it can be so we want to push that further. It was just a case of deciding how.”
A number of ideas are currently on the table but it was only after a trial upgrade on the Fraser Suites Seef Bahrain property close to the mall that the green light was given to brighten up the main complex.
“We pooled a few ideas together and decided that after testing out how a lighting system would work on Fraser Suites, it looked substantially better and that was the direction we were going to take,” Robert added.
“We haven’t finalised our plans yet, whether it’s a simple colour wash we’ll do or an elaborate thing like VIVA have on their building across the way. Although admittedly theirs is hard to top with how extravagant they went with it, so I doubt we’ll go that far and it’ll be somewhere in-between the two.”
At the current time, Seef Properties have already received numerous proposals from lighting companies, and the target is to have the redesign completed by the coming winter.
Until then, visitors and residents of the kingdom alike can enjoy the light displays on offer around the kingdom on buildings such as the VIVA corporate headquarters in Seef, the Elite Resort & Spa Bahrain and numerous other hotels, as well as the Bahrain World Trade Centre in Manama.
LEDs are the latest technological advancement in the industry, and come in the shape of small, solid light bulbs which are extremely energy efficient and long-lasting. They operate differently than traditional incandescent light bulbs and have an estimated life span of 60,000 hours (around seven years of constant use), much lower energy usage at 90 per cent more efficient, reduced maintenance costs and higher safety.
The technology has spread widely and is now used in a number of industries and applications, such as aviation, broadcasting, entertainment and gaming, traffic safety and, of course, architectural lighting.
Initially a costly option, with an individual bulb costing approximately BD35 a decade ago, LEDs have reduced in price dramatically to BD2 per bulb now that the technology is more widespread and available. Furthermore, one LED light has a lifespan of 40 regular incandescent bulbs on average, making them far cheaper in the long run before electricity costs are even factored in.
They haven’t been universally accepted though, with some activist groups such as the Dark-Sky Movement decrying their widespread adoption in urban areas, including Bahrain.
Campaigners argue that the huge increase in light pollution from extravagant LED displays not only creates ‘skyglow’ that blots out the stars, but also affects night time predators, especially birds, who have biologically evolved to be dependent on an environment with a minimum amount of pitch black darkness.
