“Experience” is the operative word at Lutron’s recently opened Commercial Experience Center (CEC) at 3 East 28^th Street in New York’s NoMad neighborhood. With a focus on educating and assisting architects, designers, contractors and building owners, the new showroom not only houses various realistic environments that demonstrate the company’s extensive controls and lighting solutions — for a wide variety of project types including hospitality, workplace, retail, healthcare, education, and numerous public venues — it allows professionals to interact with a team who walk them through specific systems and answer their questions,  both general and related to specific projects.

One particularly authentic demonstration takes place in a well-furnished representation of an upscale hotel room where strategically placed wall keypads enable occupants to open and close the shades, create various lighting schemes, even notify housekeeping.

A full-scale hotel suite showcases the company’s hospitality offering, the myRoom guestroom control system, that consolidates and facilitates the operation of lights, shades and draperies.

Photo © Eric Laignel

Designed by COOKFOX, to meet the WELL Building Standard supporting occupant health and wellness in the built environment, the 5,500-square-foot showroom is the first to emphasize Lutron’s approach to human centric lighting, dubbed Lutron HXL. This extensive program aims to promote comfort, enhance well-being and foster occupant engagement through the incorporation of daylight and connections to the outdoors, high-quality electric lighting, and adaptive and personalized control.

The recreation of a day-lit office with glass-enclosed and open spaces, provides a lifelike scenario in which architects, designers, and their clients can observe the various components of Lutron’s HXL program.

Photo © Eric Laignel

According to Lutron co-president Ramin Mehrganpour, “We can now showcase more of our comprehensive offerings.” These include products from the company’s recent acquisitions, dynamic-lighting manufacturer Ketra and outdoor controls maker Limelight. A full range of Ketra lamps and luminaires are incorporated into the various settings, for instance, so visitors can observe, first hand, the versatile capabilities of their inherent technology, which enables individual or system dimming (down to zero) and mimicking the sun’s cycle — a feature that supports human circadian rhythms, an additional component that supports Lutron’s HXL initiative.

Like Lutron’s existing Commercial Experience Centers Lutron in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania; Plantation, Florida; Irvine, California; Washington, D.C.; Toronto and London, the New York CEC is available to visit by appointment.

This story was featured in Material World, Architectural Record’s products-focused newsletter. Subscribe today!