Lighting the way

You don't have to go all the way to Stockholm in Sweden to experience an Ice Bar.

A visit to the Osram booth at the Architect 2008 exposition, being held at Challenger Hall at Muang Thong Thani until Sunday, provides a glimpse inside the world-famous drinking joint.

At the door, visitors are provided with authentic thermal-wear, a hooded parka with fake-fur trim.

The cavern-like, three-by-six metre enclosure is kept at minus five degrees Celsius.  Drinks are served at a bar made of ice.

Apart from the chilly surroundings, visitors are struck also struck by the colourful, always-changing, almost hallucinogenic lighting.

Keeping all promises

There's a vodka bottle that glows arctic blue in the dark then morphs into green before turning yellow and then blood red.

A bottle of wine with a light-changing cork, blinking ice cubes and so on.

And all this without even being offered a real drink. The organiser, the Association of Siamese Architects, doesn't allow that.

Osram, one of the world's top two manufacturers of energy-efficient light-emitting diode products, wants consumers to know more about LEDs, a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through.

Robert Buchan McKinnon, managing director of Osram (Thailand), says it will take a while for LED technology to become the light source of choice in homes, due to current high prices when compared with compact fluorescent lamps, or the so-called ecobulb.

But, LED or solid-state lighting will be the next big thing.

"With the Ice Bar, we want to inspire creativity, encourage people to be responsible with energy consumption.

"We want to cool down the planet with energy efficient LED lighting," McKinnon says.

XTRA

Illuminating

>> LED or light-emitting diode: A semiconductor device emitting light when current passes through.

>> LED lighting offers savings between 10 and 20 per cent over comparable compact fluorescent bulbs.

>> LED is becoming the light of choice for signboards, entertainment venues, traffic lights and decorative lighting

>> LEDs are rugged, reliable, long-lasting, low maintenance and more efficient than ecobulbs