A
Introduction
Beauty is revealed by light and the delicate play between light, shade and colour. When correctly
applied, good artificial architectural lighting has a natural quality that instinctively feels right and
helps us to feel good. The need for lighting design rather than lighting that fulfils the regulatory and
statutory requirements began half a century ago.
RCHITECTURAL LIGHTING DESIGN BEGAN to get noticed in the 1950s in the United States and later
spilled over to the UK and some other European countries. Lighting design is a fairly new job
description. There arenβt many courses to enroll in if one wants to become a lighting designer. Not
being able to influence what is taught in the few courses available leads many lighting design
consultancies to educate their own future lighting designers. In fact, some consultancies prefer to
foster their own talent to assure a good-quality basic training paired with a design philosophy that
matches the companyβs philosophy. Many lighting designers have either a design or architecture
background and received their basic education and finishing at a consultancy. I myself am a product
of this process and all I know has either been learned on the job or self-taught. Now, I have started to
share my knowledge and experience with the newcomers arriving at our consultancy.
This book is aimed at all new starters and the interested alike, and will hopefully become a
foundation for architects and future lighting designers. Therefore, this book covers the technical
aspects of lighting design as much as design-related features. The structure of the book allows a
person not familiar with lighting to get a step-by-step introduction to lighting design. It starts with the
basics of lamps and luminaires and the lighting tools available. These three first chapters form the
technical groundwork of the book. The fourth chapter is the core of the book and explores the key
aspects of lighting design, while the fifth chapter demonstrates what deliverables are expected and
how to present them. All explanations are backed up by images and diagrams throughout, though most
of the architectural images used in this book have been saved for the final chapter. Rather than
finishing with case studies of successfully executed jobs, this book closes with pitfalls, as a
successful lighting design scheme depends as much on well-executed details and the avoidance of
pitfalls as it does on its overarching concept.
This book will not teach you how to be creative and come up with a great lighting concept, but it
does offer the tools and advice to create the structure of knowledge and the safety net you undoubtedly
will need to do so.
