Prize(s) Winners in Heritage Lighting Design
Lighting Design/Product Company Estudio de iluminación Eugenia Basabe
Lead Designers Eugenia Basabe
Client Museo Evita – Instituto Nacional De Investigaciones Históricas Eva Perón
Photo Credits Maia Croizet
Other Credits Electric Project: Juan Pablo Cincotta Public Work Ministry team: Daniel Jimenez, Cecilia Benjardino
Completion Date July 26, 2022
Project Location Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Entry DescriptionThis museum condenses some of the intense and contradictory history of the 20th century in Argentina. During Peron´s presidency, what belonged to a wealthy family was turned, between 1948 and 1950, into a home for poor women and their children, who came from the provinces to Buenos Aires seeking better opportunities. They were given food, shelter, they were taught trades and given some months of dignity.
An old photograph exhibited in the museum shows these families enjoying leisure time around the fireplace. This photograph is the seed of the facade lighting. To tell this story ... the gentle warmth of the fire appearing through the windows.
The building now houses a museum about "Evita" and is located in a quiet residential neighborhood. The challenge was to make a powerful lighting statement using gentle touches of light, only where needed. Without polluting the sky, without glare. Barely interrupting the night darkness.
The building has heritage protection, the electrical installation was tailor-designed not to harm the architecture, and with a "reversibility" approach.
Another challenge were the public luminaires which produced so much glare that they "veiled" the vision if building. Others produced high levels of intrusive light on the lower half of the facade. We managed to get Town Hall to dimm the 5 intrusive luminaires, allowing a cleaner vision of the facade.
Sustainability ApproachCareful attention was paid to every detail. Elliptic luminaire optics ensured that light goes only to the building, with no light escaping to the sky, and without producing glare.
The color temperature is 2700ºK, providing the minimum interference with our circadian rhythm.
The overall electric consumption was under 250W for the entire facade.
Company DescriptionIluminación Eugenia Basabe studio works from the earliest concept stages throughout the entire design process in collaboration with the design teams, tailoring THE RIGHT lighting for each project.
We privilege environmental awareness, and always consider social and historical context. We bring a sensitive approach and technical expertise to every work.
Eugenia Basabe, architect by UBA and Lighting designer, founded this Bs As based studio in 2018, after 10 years of working for important Argentine Lighting Designers. She has lectured at UP university and currently teaches a lighting workshop.
