Tag Archive

Transitions in Thailand

By Amber Hepner

On a recent trip to Thailand, I enjoyed a rare opportunity to experience traditional responses to local design challenges, unique architectural expressions of place. Upon arrival, one of the first things you notice is the very hot tropical climate. Then, as you explore, you start to notice the particular cultural responses to this climate... »

The Next Big Step

By Matt Latchford

Lighting design hasn’t changed much since someone first decided to call himself a lighting designer. Twenty years ago, the most earth-shattering developments were in fluorescent lamps; ten years ago saw advances in ceramic metal halide; today we’re cautiously welcoming LEDs into regular practice. LEDs really do have the potential to displace a lot of... »

Happy 2010!

By Anna Baranczak

Photo Credits: Amit Geron (top left), Stephen M. Lee (middle left), Anton Grassl (bottom left), Peter Aaron / Esto (second from left), Barbara Karant (third from left), Shepley Bulfinch (right) »

Lessons Learned: Big Picture Clarity Requires Small Detail Focus

By Jamie Perry

Being able to see the beauty of the ‘big picture’ often requires focus on small details. This is especially true in architectural lighting, where successful projects are a collaborative integration of lighting into architecture, rather than lighting hardware applied to the built form. Hidden uplights, concealed cove fixtures, silhouetted planes, and lighted niches can... »

Daylighting Reduces Heat Gain – Pantheon Redesign?

By Bob Osten

In our June Photo of the Month article, we talked about the daylighting in the Pantheon. Let’s do some numbers just for fun: on a partly-cloudy March day in the mid-afternoon there will be about 1.2 million lumens streaming through the Pantheon’s 700-square-foot oculus. The interior light levels are fine. If we tried... »

In Defense of Design

By Keith Yancey

Throughout my professional career I’ve always enjoyed making comparisons between good lighting and good food. We obviously need food to sustain our lives, as we need light to sustain our lives. But evaluating “good” lighting on simplistic numerical quantifications such as footcandles or lumens per watt is similar to evaluating a good meal on... »