Lubbock Water Tower Project Wins IES Lighting Award
The City of Lubbock’s Twin Water Tower Project has been recognized with a 2024 Illumination Award for Outdoor Lighting Design from the Dallas chapter of the Illuminating Engineering Society.
The award recognizes excellence in lighting design and application in all aspects of exterior lighting. The program celebrates achievements in aesthetics, applied technical acumen, creative solutions to demanding site conditions, and advancements in the industry in outdoor lighting applications.
Freese and Nichols collaborated with the City on the project, which involved designing two new 2-million-gallon Elevated Water Storage Tanks. Electrical Engineers Dan Koss and Cihan Barnett led the lighting portion of the project, and each received an award from the IES chapter.
According to the award submission, the ESTs showcase the City’s logos on the bowls with distinctive illumination that preserves night skies and minimizes off-site lumens.
Each tower features a 98-foot-diameter, 45-foot-tall standard bowl design atop a 162-foot-tall base. Lighting was designed to blend seamlessly with the bowl’s shape and the surrounding environment. The lighting fixtures were concealed within the structure, becoming virtually invisible when observed from ground level.
The system saves light and power compared to traditional pole-mounted High-Intensity Discharge EST lighting. The City can also dim the lights to conserve power. Because the lighting would be hard to access once the towers were built, long-life fixtures were chosen that can be replaced when repainting is planned after 15 years.
