on the boards: trinity episcopal church, galveston
G2LD is proud to have been invited to spearhead the lighting of the 1841 Sanctuary for Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston. While the historic structure contained beautiful material and craftsmanship, both were largely invisible to users of the space due to the dark woods throughout and lack of sufficient lighting.
Like many churches, their existing lighting consisted of various types and sources which had been added over the years to try to fill various needs, with mixed results. Also, like many churches which originally had high wattage, short lamp life incandescents, these fixtures had been retrofitted with compact fluorescent lamps several years ago in an effort to boost efficiency. Unfortunately, this move left the beautiful church with a washed out dim light which was unable to highlight the architecture or provide functional light for its users. As the photos show, the image with the existing lights ‘On’ is not terribly different than having no lights at all.
Still in the design phase, the church requested a mock-up of the altar area to help initiate fund raising for the extensive lighting remodel.
The before-and-after results from the use of only eight 40w LED lamps were remarkable.
With only 320w total, the eight high-color rendering LED lamps were able to dramatically illuminate the altar and surrounding areas, including the ceiling. The lamps, which are housed in only two fixtures, are able to be discretely tucked into the architecture so that the introduction of new lighting never has to detract from the historic architecture–only enhance it.
After the success of the mock-up, the congregation is hopeful that they will be able to move forward with a lighting renovation for the entire historic sanctuary in the near future.
