Home Lighting Design
Welcome
to the home lighting design section. The lighting scheme of a room can make or
break how it feels to live in the space. Deciding on your lighting scheme
is an essential part of the home design process because it needs to be thought
out and detailed on the detailed design drawings. So here’s a few
quick links to what’s on this page and in the rest of the lighting design
section of the website.
Lighting
know-how
Lighting
Design Techniques
Lighting
Calculation
Lighting
Control Systems
Room
by room lighting ideas
Kitchen Lighting Ideas
Bedroom Lighting Ideas
Bathroom Lighting Ideas
Living room lighting ideas
Dining Room Lighting Ideas
Home
Lighting Design Process
This
section aims to break down the art of home lighting into a home lighting design
process. If something is a process it can be learned and used again and again.
So let’s get started.
The
lighting techniques page, the ‘Which light bulb?’ page, the lighting
calculations page. Or you can get started on the process below and go and
take a look at those pages when you need to know more.
Light
it up! - Deciding what to light
Lush
Lighting Layers - Deciding what layers to use (ambient, task, feature)
What
a Feeling - Deciding on lighting atmospheres
Spotlight
on the Detail - Picking from the room lighting ideas catalog
Going
Shopping - Deciding on lighting fixtures
Light
it up! - Deciding what to light
When
you’re faced with lighting a room, don’t be tempted to run out to your nearest
lighting store or stick your head into your lighting catalogues. The
starting point of the home lighting design process is to look first at what you
want to light up, then think about what you’ll light it up with.
The
first step in deciding what to light is to think about the activities which go
on in a room. All design starts with thinking about the activity the
design is going to accommodate. For example in a kitchen we prepare food
and eat, in the living room we chat and watch TV, in the bedroom we might read
and sleep. Each of those activities has items in the home associated with
it. For example in the kitchen we light the kitchen top for food
preparation and the kitchen table for eating. In the living room we need
light so we can see each other faces. In the bedroom we need a light
which allows us to read a book. If there’s anything special that’s in the
room, such as a painting or sculpture, or an architectural feature that you’d
like to highlight with your lighting scheme, put that on the list.
In
summary, for each room, make a list of the activities and associated items or
parts of the home that need to be lit. To get you started with this, each
room lighting ideas page goes through activity ideas in detail.
Lush
Lighting Layers - Deciding what lighting layers to use
Let’s
talk a little bit about what a ‘lighting layer’ is. If you pick up a
magazine article or book on lighting design it isn’t long before the mention of
lighting layers comes up. For the purposes of home lighting design I’m
going to talk in terms of 3 lighting layers. The first two nearly always
have the same name in all articles and books and you may have heard mention of
them before:
Ambient
Lighting
The
ambient lighting layer provides what the eye perceives as the general level of
light in a room. Ambient lighting is delivered through the larger lighting
fixtures in a room, and don't forget the role of daylight in home lighting
design.
Task
Lighting
The
task lighting layer which provides light for a specific activity to make the
activity easier. Examples are lighting the counter tops in the kitchen
for food preparation, or a reading light in the living room. If the
ambient lighting in the kitchen or living room is sufficient it may well be
possible to prepare food and read without task lighting, but the extra light
enhances the experience of chopping or a good novel considerably.
Feature
Lighting
I
have come across feature lighting referred to as decorative lighting, or accent
lighting. My personal favorite, ‘sparkle’. Feature lighting isn’t
necessary for any activities in the room, so it's there to add a bit of sparkle
to your home lighting design. Examples include lighting up a glass
fronted cupboard in the kitchen or lighting up a picture in the living room.
What
a Feeling - Deciding on lighting atmospheres
The
atmosphere that a home lighting design scheme creates is all to do with the
interplay between contrasts in light and that are happening in a room and the
brightness of light in a room.
Contrast
has to do with the amount of change from dark to light in a lighting
scheme. To make things simple we’ll work with two levels: high contrast
and low contrast. You could also think of this as being exciting and
calm. High contrast lighting has lots of shadows and changes from light
to shadow across the space. Low contrast has very few shadows and the
level of light is more or less uniform across the space.
Moving
on to brightness. Again, to make things simple let’s work with two levels
of brightness: strong and soft. These two terms are pretty
self-explanatory. Strong light is bright light. Soft light is dim
light.
Now
let’s put these ideas of contrast and brightness together and see a few
emotional atmospheres that can be created in a home lighting design.
For
each activity that you have for each room assign a lighting atmosphere.
In practice you’ll be working within these three groups:
Soft
light, low contrast
Bright
light, low contrast
Soft
light, high contrast
Generally
each room will have at least two atmospheres, one for day and one for
evening. Some rooms may have several different moods that you’re seeking
to create based on different activities. It’s fun to try and give them a
name.
Kitchen
lighting moods
Top
of the morning (bright light, low contrast) for the kitchen in the mornings
when everyone’s getting ready to go.
Kitchen
comfort (bright light, high contrast) for when the cooking and clearing away
activities are done for the day and it’s time for a cup of tea and a chapter of
a book.
Kitchen
nightclub (low light, high contrast) for the time I installed disco lights and
a mirror ball in the kitchen. Did I just admit to that?
Other
examples of lighting atmosphere
Dramatic
sensuality (soft light, high contrast) for a bedroom at night time.
Easy
does it (low light, low contrast) for the hallways at night time.
Armed
with your list of moods that you want to create in your home lighting design,
head on over to room lighting ideas page and browse the lighting ideas listed
for each room. Le your architect or design professional know what
lighting you want in each room because the lighting design plan forms part of
the construction drawings. The lighting symbols page will help you
understand your lighting design plan.
Going
shopping - Deciding on lighting fixtures
Now
it’s time for the lighting catalogs and maybe a visit to your lighting
showroom. Take a look at the lighting calculations page and the ‘Which
light bulb?’ page to get the knowledge you need to shop for light fixtures
effectively.