One of the core fundamentals of the design community is collaboration. Whether it be among multiple designers within a single office, or between the architect, consultants, and of course the owner working towards the goals of a project, a design is never fully visualized and constructed without careful collaboration of resources and ideas. As... »

Part 3 of an ongoing series outlining design principles for sustainable lighting design: here are a few ideas regarding electric lighting to help navigate the greenwash. Strike a balance between efficiency and functionality The efficiency of a light fixture or system is not a replacement for functionality and aesthetics. On the other hand, the... »

Architects were the first lighting designers, and the first daylighting experts. The sun was once the only thing we had to illuminate the interiors of our architecture. We understood its character, its movement, its color and changeability. Until about seventy years ago or so, daylighting was still the primary source of energy used for... »

Like it or not, BIM – by which I mean Revit – is here to stay. For smaller firms, Revit may represent a daunting hurdle to overcome, in terms of both cost and learning curve. While I agree the cost is high, once I began to understand how the software functions, I realized it... »

Part 2 of an ongoing series outlining design principles for sustainable lighting design: here are a few ideas regarding daylighting, to help navigate the greenwash. Only a little direct sun, please Too much direct sunlight increases the indoor temperature, creating higher cooling loads. It also increases the potential for glare. If there’s too much... »

The reason for daylighting in buildings is to save energy, and so the value (“payback”) of that daylighting can be calculated by predicting and pricing the amount of energy saved. That’s a common line of thought which is easy to slip into, but it’s dead wrong. Let’s look at a simple example of a... »