ENHANCING THE INTERIOR LIGHTING OF MOSQUES WITH LEDS

The lighting system inside the mosque enables the religious acts, creates the visual comfort for the worshippers and emphasizes the architectural property. This study aims at replacing incandescent lamps inside the mosque lanterns with LEDs in order to reduce energy consumption and frequency of maintenance, while maintaining color temperatures close to that of incandescent lamps and higher efficacies. For this aim, a system of LEDs, which can be fitted into the oil lamp and which sends light to all directions has been designed to provide the most convenient and efficient lighting conditions inside the mosque. While the light sent to the lower half space provides the necessary illuminance levels on the mosque floor, the light sent to the upper half space will conserve the essence of the ancient lighting design as well as enabling reflections from the dome to provide diffuse light in the mosque interior. The design of this study will thereby provide a visually enhanced mosque interior for the worshippers and at the same time surpass the current lighting conditions with the superior capabilities of LEDs.