Lighting by Room Activity Types of Light Sources Determine Daylight Needs How to Use Windows Qualities of Light Creating a Lighting Scheme Controls |
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Space is defined by light. “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light,” said Corbusier. Simple design techniques can boost the effectiveness of a building, making it happier, healthier, and more productive.
Lighting by Room Activity
Determine the amount of light each room, and spaces within the rooms, need. This depends on the activities of the space and whether it is a private or public. Program the light levels as a list. For example:
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The Seattle Public Library carefully considers its lighting needs and uses light to establish characteristics for each space. The entire wall and ceiling of the vast reading room is a grid of windows, making it bright and public. Book shelves have more controlled task lights which are easily adjustable.
Service and gallery rooms have little light, making them private and poignant. |  |
| The Paris Opera House also uses dark space. The famous grand staircase is bright and public, but it gently transitions into a dark circulation hallway just outside the main auditorium, a dramatic procession for guests of the opera.
Arrangements of spaces should relate their lighting needs in order to establish a procession. This also helps the designer figure out how to relate private and public programs for their building. Public and private spaces are often grouped together but they can also be arranged to compliment each other. Make a general bubble diagram of lighting needs of spaces and how they relate to each other. |
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Types of Lighting Sources
| Ambient– The most common light source, ambient lights are often hung or mounted to ceilings in light fixtures. In office ceilings they are recessed. They can also be mounted to walls and be portable fixtures. |  |
Focal or task lighting concentrates on a certain space such as an office desk or painting on a wall. They can be easily turned on or off by an individual and don’t intrude too much on other spaces in the room.
Feature or architectural lighting illuminates the actual architecture of the room, such as a wall or ceiling. This is the most preferred lighting method because it creates an even, indirect lighting environmental and enlivens the architecture, drawing the occupants in. Interesting interior textures like brick or stone veneer make for good feature lighting.
| Windows can achieve ambient, focal, or feature lighting. The sizing of the window and the depth of the frame around it can focus it or allow it to shine on architecture features. |  |
Determine Daylight Needs
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Buildings receive a considerable amount of light through windows. The average room requires a window that is half as tall as the room is long, and half as wide as the roof is wide. Use this as a rule of thumb.
Make a list of rooms and spaces by how much daylight they need. |  |
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Again, the program of activities comes into play. Private spaces should have less windows, or at least use translucent glass that isn’t transparent. Activities that demand all light be turned off, such as a theater, should have no windows. Other spaces like lobbies need more windows to help transition to the outside of the building.
There needs to be electric lights for activities that happen at night. So make sure that by day there are lights and daylight, and by night there are adequate lights for when the sun doesn’t shine.
Light from windows save energy costs. But windows play a much larger role. The occupant is connected to his environment as daylight changes according to the time of day and season of the year. It influences the character of the space and relates it to the overall environment. Daylight is healthy.
How to Use Windows
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Light, Air, Sound, Views– These are the four aspects in which windows transition spaces. Too many people only consider the daylight windows emit. But the views, the circulation of natural air, and the sound that transmit through are also important.
Windows should also be included in the air circulation plan and acoustic plan of the building. Images of the views from the window should be inserted in interior elevations to get a sense of how it connects these spaces. |  |
Translucent glass can be used to repress a visual connection of spaces. Clerestory windows subtly provide light without offering views outside. Though less popular today, clerestories were a traditional method of bringing extra light into American and European homes.
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In Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple stained glass windows are used to create a destination point. A dark, cramped hallway gives way to even smaller hallways behind the chapel room. Vertical strips of red window hint at the paradisiacal chapel. The ceiling of the chapel is a grid of cheery yellow and white skylights. Warm electric lights hang low to distinguish them from the skylight source. The vast space is awash with natural brightness.
Windows contribute to a change in light brightness, light color, and lighting type. Doorways should also be considered as a kind of window between rooms. Plan a program of where windows and needed, their size, and their type. |  |
Qualities of Light
Indirect daylight reduces glare and heat gain. Direct sun should only be allowed in a window to heat up the space or as a special effect.
Exterior shades should be used to block sunlight. Horizontal shades on south (north) facing windows allow open views, and vertical shades are necessary on western and eastern facing windows as the sun moves lower in the sky. Trees and other features can be used to bring in indirect light.
Each kind of light bulb has a different color of light. The chemicals used to produce the light emit different shades of red, yellow, blue. High pressure sodium, for example, has much more yellow and orange than mercury vapor. Incandescents are preferred because of their warm rich colors, which is similar to sunlight. Even indirect light from the sky is an even, warm spectrum of colors.
Fluorescent lights are notoriously bland with strong green and blue hues, though they are very energy efficient. They also work by flashing on and off very quickly, which causes headaches and sore eyes.
LED lights are up and coming in popularity because of their energy efficiency, variety of color options, and long life.
It is important to seek a balance of colors for typical spaces in picking types of electric light and sizing. The color of light is a very subtle but powerful element in the mood of its occupants in a space. Consider the activity of a space for how color is balanced.
Factor in materials of the walls, floor, and ceiling for architectural lighting and light reflections. The private exhibition spaces of the Seattle Library have reflective walls and ceilings of bright red, which make the lighting stark red. The clash between this red and the yellow of the elevator give a stark transition as one steps out into the hallway.
Don’t imitate natural light sources! Most residential designers just throw a ceiling light in the middle of rooms. But they don’t consider what this does. The entire room effaces this fixture light a mini-sun, removing all consideration of other rooms or the outside. The room becomes its own little realm.
In some cases this has an interesting effect, like the chandelier in the middle of a dining room. But when it isn’t carefully considered it becomes a hindrance to the unification of a building.
| Unity comes with a balance of lighting types, daylighting, colors, and brightness. Distinguish electric light from the sun by using creative lighting fixtures and placing them somewhere other than the ceiling. |  |
Creating a Lighting Scheme
Use floor plans, section cuts, and elevations based on your program of light in spaces. Consider activities, furniture, and building materials to establish the balance you need. Consider how light relates spaces and how outside elements contribute.
Controls
Exterior shades are really nice when you can move them with the flick of a switch. Rollable shades can completely block or partly obscure windows. Louvers and twist and contort as desired, and controls can be programmable and automatic.
Dimmer switches are frequently used to give the occupant more options for light levels. It is also important to consider a variety of switches, such as lights that remain on during the day and lights that only switch on at night. In considering light switches, avoid panels of lights that take a long time to use but also try to provide more options.
One handy addition that really makes things convenient is a master switch at a main exit that turns everything on or off as the occupant is entering or leaving, like at the front door of a house. The wiring gets cumbersome but the owner sure appreciates it.
Also, consider wall sockets that should be relayed with switches so that table lamps can be easily turned on or off.
© Benjamin Blankenbehler 2013
